TBM Staff - Mumbai According to a report in The Financial Express, the Union civil aviation ministry has allotted 28 non-operational routes under its regional connectivity scheme UDAN to state-owned Alliance Air.
The routes were awarded under the short-bidding round UDAN 5.3 on May 28, amid the parliamentary elections, with special permission from the Election Commission, they said.
This bidding round focussed on priority routes and those meant for promoting tourism. These included Ahmedabad-Keshod (in Gujarat), Guwahati-Rupsi (in Assam), Guwahati-Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh, Imphal-Tezu, Jaipur-Bikaner (in Rajasthan), Jalgaon-Ahmedabad, Jalgaon-Mumbai, Jothat-Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh, Kolkata-Rupsi, and Kullu-Jaipur.
According to the sources, these routes were awarded to Alliance Air as it was prepared to launch services at short notice.
“These routes were awarded after extensive checks on the preparedness of Alliance Air were carried out,” one of the sources said. “The airline has the manpower and the aircraft ready to deploy on these routes.”
The previous award for these routes was cancelled by the ministry. Last year, the ministry cancelled 500 of the total 1,300 routes that were awarded under the scheme as the operators had not shown any signs of starting services.
“The short-bidding round is a faster way to re-auction non-operational routes. Till now, re-auction has been time-consuming since the process depended on the commencement of a new bidding phase of the scheme,” a source said. “More such rounds can be expected in the near future,” the source added.
Also, with the aim to make these routes more viable, the ministry has worked out a benchmark passenger load factor level to make a route eligible for funding. The duration of viability gap funding has also been enhanced from the standard three-year period.
The UDAN scheme was launched in 2016 to promote air connectivity on under-served or unserved routes. It has facilitated the travel of close to 30 million passengers till now. At present, nearly 150 airports, including eight heliports, have been developed or operationalised under the scheme.
