New funding routes on regional flight map: Budgetary support, other options on cards

The government is looking at new mechanisms to fund its regional air connectivity scheme, including providing budgetary support to offset the losses that airlines may suffer due to flying to remote destinations. The proposals are currently undergoing inter-ministerial consultation, people in the know said.

The government is planning to aggressively push the UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) scheme as it seeks to connect 120 new destinations in the next 10 years.

Under the scheme launched in 2016, the fare is capped for half of the seats to make air travel affordable. Since operations on hinterlands routes are commercially not viable because of the fare cap and low traffic, the government provides incentives to airlines, such as waiver of landing and navigation charges and subsidies.