Low-cost carriers to gain from Yogi govt's tourism push in UP

State's airport roadmap seeks to ramp up air connectivity to boost leisure, religious tourism

The proposal of the Yogi Adityanath government to develop new airports and upgrade existing ones to boost air connectivity in Uttar Pradesh will unlock the untapped air travel potential in the state, especially for low-cost carriers.

“There is a lot of air travel potential in this region and development of greenfield and brownfield airports would fuel the growth of the sector and encourage more people to upgrade to air travel,” low-cost carrier Scoot country head Bharath Mahadevan told Business Standard in Lucknow.

The UP government is working towards boosting air connectivity to promote leisure and religious tourism over the next 2-3 years. It has identified key centres, including Agra, Kanpur, Chakeri, Bareilly, Lalitpur, Jhansi, Faizabad, Meerut, Moradabad, Aligarh, Chitrakoot and Allahabad to develop greenfield airports or upgrade existing airstrips to handle scheduled and air services. 

Mahadevan noted more than the price, it is the individual choice to take up the air travel, which needs to be promoted. “Going forward, I foresee tremendous growth in this sector, especially from smaller towns," he said. 

Scoot is the medium-to-long haul arm of Singapore Airlines Group. The company had launched its services in June 2012 and merged with Tigerair Singapore in July 2017.

Earlier, Tigerair had launched its Lucknow-Singapore air service in December 2015 and now the thrice weekly service continues under the Scoot brand, he informed. “The occupancy rate on this route is encouraging and we may increase the frequency depending upon the response we get in future.”

Eastern UP region has a large population base and an expanding middle class with rising disposable income. The low-cost operators are keen to leverage the leisure, tourism and business travel from the region to the South East Asian destinations.

Besides, Lucknow functions as a catchment for getting tourists from other neighbouring cities, especially Kanpur and eastern UP districts.

Meanwhile, Scoot is looking at expanding its footprint to more Tier-II towns in the near future.

Recently, the Centre had given in principle approval to the proposed Jewar airport in Greater Noida, which would entail an investment of about Rs 20,000 crore. It would serve as an international airport in the national capital region (NCR) to decongest the existing New Delhi airport in future.

Currently, there are over two dozen airports and airstrips in the state, owned either by the Airport Authority of India (AAI) or the UP government, located in Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Bareilly, Meerut, Saifai (Etawah), Sultanpur, Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Farrukhabad, Faizabad, Kushinagar, Sonbhadra, Moradabad, Azamgarh etc. Besides, UP civil aviation department owns 18 airstrips of which the Jhansi airstrip is controlled by the Indian Army.