NE BUSINESS BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, JULY 29
A daily flight will start operating on Delhi-Bhavnagar and the Mumbai-Bhavnagar route for the first time on August 20, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Thursday. The minister, however, did not specify which airline will be operating the flights on the aforementioned routes.
“From August 20, the first daily air service is going to start from New Delhi to Bhavnagar. Along with this, a daily service from Mumbai to Bhavnagar will also start from the same day,” Scindia said on Twitter.
“This will certainly ensure easy accessibility to Delhi and Mumbai for Bhavangar’s citizens,” he noted. The minister said the civil aviation sector is determined to connect every nook and corner of the country with air services under the successful leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
At a recently held press conference, IATA’s Director General Willie Walsh has asked the Indian government to relook at their decision to ban scheduled international flights and said things have improved. Addressing the media, Walsh said that the decision was applicable to last year when the situation was worse but with all the regulations in place and safety being paramount consideration for airlines, the centre should allow scheduled international flights.
He also said that the Vande Bharat Flights and Air Bubble pacts were primarily for bringing back stranded Indians and that’s no more the case. Also, regulations on capacity utilisation as well as fare caps on the domestic aviation sector is slowing down the industry’s recovery, he noted.
Notably, the centre’s regulations have been justified to protect the domestic aviation sector from economic turmoil unleashed by Covid-19. However, IATA’s Director General Willie Walsh said that the regulations are distorting the market rather than supporting the growth of the market.
According to Walsh, India’s aviation market will recover much faster, if these regulations are removed. Previous data points showed that India’s domestic air passenger volume — measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) — growth plunged by 42 percent in April when compared to the levels in the like period of 2019.
The country’s domestic available passenger capacity — measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs) — was down by over 15 percent. Besides, IATA predicted that India’s aviation market will recover to the 2019 levels by 2024.
