India’s airport capacity will increase by 5 times, facilitating 1 billion air trips a year in the next few years, finance minister Arun Jaitley in his speech Thursday presenting the government’s latest fiscal budget for 2018-19.
The state-run Airports Authority of India currently operates 124 airports. There are 6 additional privately run airports.
The surge will primarily be pushed by the Narendra Modi government’s regional connectivity scheme also called UDAN, which seeks to air connect India’s small towns at affordable
“Ab hawai chappal pehnne wale bhi hawai jahaaz ki yatra kar rahe hain” (Now even people wearing hawai chappals are flying in aircraft), quipped Jaitley, perhaps in a comment on how the UDAN scheme aspires to make the common man fly.
He said 56 new airports and 31 new helipads will be connected under the UDAN scheme and added already 16 airports are part of it.
The UDAN scheme has completed its second round of bidding and already resulted in the entry of at least four new carriers in the Indian skies, including the reborn Air Deccan, owned by GR Gopinath.
IndiGo, SpiceJet, Jet Airways and Air India’s regional unit Alliance Air are the latest to get into the scheme.
Under UDAN, the government aspires to connect far flung towns like Jalgaon, Maharashtra, Kopal, Hosur in Karnataki, Burnpur and Cooch Behar West Bengal and Azamgarh in UP at fares under Rs 3,000.
