Though UDAN scheme aims to boost airport connectivity and air traffic, a lot more needs to be done in its implementation phase.
What is the UDAN scheme?
The scheme UDAN envisages providing connectivity to un-served and under-served airports of the country through revival of existing air-strips and airports.
UDAN has a unique market-based model to develop regional connectivity.
Interested airline and helicopter operators can start operations on hitherto un-connected routes by submitting proposals to the Implementing Agency.
The operators could seek a Viability Gap Funding (VGF) apart from getting various concessions.
All such route proposals would then be offered for competitive bidding through a reverse bidding mechanism and the route would be awarded to the participant quoting the lowest VGF per Seat.
The successful bidder would then have exclusive rights to operate the route for a period of three years.
Since the scheme also capped the price of half the inventory of seats, airfares would remain affordable.
A Regional Connectivity Fund would also be created to meet the viability gap funding requirements under the scheme.
Additionally, there would be certain tax concessions in ATF fuel from both the Centre and the states and waivers of landing charges from airport operators.
Thus, the UDAN scheme is likely to a give a major fillip to tourism and employment generation in the hinterland.
What are the challenges?
Infrastructure - Building a greenfield airport isn’t enough, unless flights are able to take off and land.
Inclement weather conditions make it difficult for flights to land on the airports located on mountainous terrains on most days.
Also, lack of instrument landing systems (ILS) lead to flight cancellations and the repeated cancellations make it difficult to build traffic on the route on a sustained basis.
Traffic route - While the infra challenge might be easier to fix, the bigger challenge is putting in place an ideal network design.
Thus, the key is to discover routes where there is sustained traffic, not just in a few months of the year, but all round the year.
To generate steady, predictable traffic, a hub and spoke design should be followed by connecting the large metro airports to the new Udan routes, as opposed to a point-to-point service.
Capacity - India’s metro airports are largely choked and they have already run out of capacity in terms of landing and parking slots.
Also, passenger traffic in these airports continues to gallop at nearly 18-20% every year.
To manage these traffic, the existing airlines have responded by ordering aircraft that could almost double the existing aircraft capacity in another three years.
This will stretch India’s airport capacity in the metros even further.
Though the Udan routes was intended to help manage this traffic flow from metro routes, it affects more from this rise in air traffic.
This is because, the airport operators are expected to waive off landing and parking charges on these routes and thus more airlines are expected to ply on these routes.
Time slots - Subsequently, finding convenient time slots for every route will become an administrative challenge.
This is because, the number of runways is not increasing in high traffic airports and the airport capacity lag the passenger traffic growth.
Especially, the new regional airlines have faced a major challenge in connecting the metro airports to the new Udan routes, since they don’t have pre-existing slots in them.
This has made these regional operators difficult to start operations for more than a year, which has also resulted in their licenses getting stripped off later.
Thus, managing air traffic is a complex problem to solve, showing that UDAN has a long way to go ensure seamless connectivity in India.
