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The Association of Private Airport Operators (APAO) has opposed the civil aviation ministry’s proposed regional connectivity policy, saying the destinations included in the proposal lacked traffic potential and the incentives offered to airlines to launch services were not enough to cover their costs.
The ministry recently invited views from industry stakeholders on the proposed policy to boost regional connectivity.
Earlier, the airlines had opposed the draft policy, saying flying to those destinations mentioned in the draft policy would have severe financial implications.
APAO includes GVK and GMR group-run airports (Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad) and Kochi.
In its letter to the civil aviation ministry, APAO has said 10 of 87 destinations listed in the proposal have a traffic of 70 or more passengers each day to/from Delhi, while the rest “do not have the ability to support or augment scheduled carriers’ service network”.
The aviation ministry’s proposal says airlines should deploy at least six per cent of the capacity deployed on trunk routes to “incentive destinations” and also on routes within Jammu & Kashmir. In turn, the airlines will be exempt from landing and parking charges, route navigation charges, passenger service fee and fuel throughput charge levied by the Airports Authority of India.
According to the airports’ body, these concessions alone would not be sufficient to incentivise airlines as these don’t even constitute 10 per cent of an airline’s operating cost. In order to break even on these routes, the airlines would require 75 per cent occupancy.
| Only ten destinations have traffic of 70 passengers to and from Delhi - Agartala, Dibrugarh, Imphal, Dharmashala, Gaya, Gwalior, Kanpur, Kullu, Ludhiana and Simla |
Source: APAO
