100 days report card: Civil Aviation Minister still has many decisions to take

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has identified five locations for no-frills airports. These are Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh, Hubli and Belgaun in Karnataka, Kishanganj in Rajasthan and Jharsuguda in Odhisha. Work will begin on airport construction in these locations from next fiscal and the plan is to eventually develop 50 such airports.

These will be truly no-frills and in the most basic version of such airports there may be no arrival hall, no conveyor belts, no security hold or check-in area and no air conditioning. Also, you will not find boarding bridges, escalators, elevators or carousals at such airports. Called Type-I, this lowest cost airport terminal (in all four types of terminal buildings are envisaged based on aircraft size) will be meant for 20-seater aircraft which may want to land in Tier-II and Tier-III cities. Initially, Air Traffic Control (ATC) services will be provided through mobiles or remote towers! Only clear weather, day time operations will be permitted at such airports.

Announcing these locations today, the Minister of Civil Aviation A Gajapathi Raju said his ministry has also taken many passenger friendly initiatives in the first 100 days. These include a number of initiatives to help disabled flyers such as reserving two window seats which are not on emergency exits of an aircraft till 24 hours before the flight. Also, they will be provided baggage assistance till the ladder point and special help desks have already been set up at 76 airports with trained personnel to help disabled passengers.

More from Economy

Inflation likely to be a big focus area for budget 2024, say sources Explained: Will the Bank of Japan break tradition and raise interest rates?

Then, the DGCA has launched a ‘Know Your Rights’ portal which explains a passenger’s rights in case of missed or delayed flights and claims in case of misplaced or damaged baggage.

Also, a draft for the new Anti-Hijack Bill has been readied which proposes death penalty to the hijacker and also enhances the definition of the term ‘hijack’ to include such instances even if the airport is still on ground.

But in all, the ministry had a mixed report card in its first 100 days. Though Minister A Gajapathi Raju agrees that the antiquated 5/20 rule must go, he is not committing to a timeline on this. This rule mandates that an Indian airline must have a fleet of 20 aircraft and must have completed five years of domestic operations to become eligible to fly abroad. The minister again said today that there was no logic to 5/20 but will he repeal it?

Other important decisions pending include privatisation of six airports at Chennai, Kolkata, Jaipur, Guwahati, Ahmedabad and Lucknow under the PPP model. This process was started earlier under the UPA regime and is being pursued afresh by Raju but again no final decision has been taken.

Earlier, there has been talk of a bailout package for loss making private airlines within the ministry - this involved the Government helping airlines get loans at cheaper rates. But Raju today denied any such package was in the works, saying there was no possibility of any sort of subsidy in this sector. For helping airlines, the Minister agreed to only one point: that taxation by states on Aviation Turbine Fuel needs to be reduced.

Even on various arms of the ministry like AAI, AERA and soon AI becoming headless, Raju merely said appointments will be made as per Government procedure without giving a timeline.

Like we said earlier, it is mixed report card so far for Raju.