Civil aviation minister Praful Patel on Thursday unveiled a new government policy wherein a separate scheduled operator permit would be introduced for what is known as "regional airlines" to improve connectivity to smaller cities and towns in the country.
As per this category, a regional airline would be allowed to operate between any non-metro airport in the country and in addition, would only be allowed to operate from the metros in the particular region for which the regional airline will get a permit. The four regions in the country will be the southern, northern, western and eastern/north-eastern regions. The metro cities have been identified as New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
The regional airlines operating small aircraft with mass of less than 40,000 kgs. will be eligible for the concessions (lower taxation) for aviation turbine fuel (4 per cent cut) as enjoyed by those given to national-level airlines with the same small aircraft. More concessions will be announced soon, he said.
The new scheme will operate like this: A regional airline, registered in western India will be allowed to operate between any non-metro airport in the country and, in addition, will only be allowed to operate from Mumbai. Since there are three metro cities in southern India, south-based regional airlines will be allowed to operate between these three metro cities.
"There was a need to expand air services to the tier-II and tier-III cities to meet the unfulfilled demand which the existing operators are unable to cater to for various reasons," Mr Patel said.
Friday, August 10, 2007
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