On the sidelines of Airports Authority of India (AAI) annual day function; Chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra said that the recently launched UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme would help the emerging civil aviation sector in the country to grow exponentially.
The UDAN scheme is a regional connectivity scheme launched by the Central government to make flying a safe, secure and inexpensive and would and thereby making air travel a reality for common people under.
While addressing the AAI family the Chairman said that in the aviation infrastructure front, "several terminal buildings at Gorakhpur, Belgavi, Hubbali, Jammu" were dedicated to the nation including operationalizing of the Central Air Traffic Flow Management (CATFM) in order to balance the demand and supply in the airports.
He added that CAT III B Instrument Landing System (ILS) was introduced at "Amritsar and Kolkata to reduce the difficulties faced by the travelling public due to fog and bad weather conditions but equally came out with flying colours for providing customer excellence to the travelling public".
Speaking exclusively to ANI during the 23th Annual Day Celebration in Chairman said, "The way the Indian aviation sector is increasing, we have realised that the incremental changes will not do, we require exponential changes now and that is why we are targeting to start a new 'terminal building project' of more than 15000 Crore in this financial year 2018-19".
Giving an emphasis on regional connectivity Mohapatra mentioned that all the airports under this scheme are ready for operations and new airlines like Air Deccan and Air Odisha are ready to start their connections.
"Our mandate and our desire is that flying becomes safe, secure, comfortable and cheap, we are working towards that," said Mohapatra.
While giving awards to its staff members, Mohapatra praised them for improving passenger conveniences like ambiance and other services at airports across the country.
Most importantly, Mohapatra pointed out that it is for the first time that many of the airports like Lucknow, Indore, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Pune have bagged top positions at the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards 2017 organised by Airport Council International (ACI).
More than 900 aircrafts are planned to be added by the airlines to meet the rising demand.
The AAI has planned a capital expenditure (CAPEX) of almost Rs 20,500 crore over a period of 5 years. Rs 5,000 crore has been assigned as CAPEX pegged to meet the challenge for the financial year of 2018-19.
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