• Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia flagged off flight operations on Keshod-Mumbai route under RCS-UDAN scheme.

• Alliance Air was awarded the route under the 4.1 version of the scheme and with the opening of this new route, a total of 417 routes have been operationalised under the initiative.

• Somnath Temple and Gir National Park are located near Keshod.

• Owned by the Airports Authority of India, the Keshod airport in Junagadh district of Gujarat was initially refurbished and revived in the late 1980s to facilitate scheduled operations. For the last 21 years, commercial flight operations were not being carried out from this airport.

• The AAI has invested an amount of Rs 25 crore to upgrade the airport for resurfacing of runway, procurement of Aircraft Crash Fire Tender (ACFT), new civil enclave, including the terminal building, apron for two ATR-72 types of aircraft and link taxiway, among others. 

• Alliance Air has commenced flight services to Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport from Keshod.

• The airline will operate thrice a week flights on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and deploy its seven-seater ATR 72-600 aircraft. 

• The new UDAN flight route will bring the tourist destination Keshod on the national air map and offer convenience and comfort to travellers of this region.

• At present, it takes about 16 hours to travel by road from Keshod to Mumbai but with the introduction of air services between the two destinations, the travel time will reduce to just 1 hour and 25 minutes.

What is UDAN scheme?

• UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik) is a key component of the National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP), 2016 which was released by the ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) on June 15, 2016. 

• Ministry of civil aviation launched RCS-UDAN scheme on October 21, 2016. The first RCS-UDAN flight was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 27, 2017 from Shimla to Delhi.

• The primary objective of RCS is to facilitate and stimulate regional air connectivity by making it affordable. 

• The regional connectivity scheme (RCS) will be applicable on route length between 200 to 800 km with no lower limit set for hilly, remote, island and security sensitive regions.

• The scheme is for a period of 10 years. 

• The government aims to achieve the target of operationalising as many as 100 unserved and underserved airports and starting at least 1,000 RCS routes by 2024.

Promoting affordability of Regional air connectivity is envisioned under RCS by supporting airline operators through:

1) Concessions by central government, state governments and airport operators to reduce the cost of airline operations on regional routes.

2) Financial support (viability gap funding or VGF) to meet the gap, if any, between the cost of airline operations and expected revenues on such routes. 

RCS-UDAN is a demand-driven scheme, where airline operators undertake assessment of demand on particular routes.

Concessions to reduce airline operations

1) Concessions from the government of India:

• Viability Gap Funding (VGF) to subsidise the airfare.

• Concession on service tax on tickets.

• Code-sharing of UDAN-RCS flights permitted with other operators.

2) Concessions from state governments:

• Reduction of VAT (or GST after GST came in operation) to 1 per cent or less for 10 years.

• Coordinate with oil companies to create fueling infrastructure on airports.

• Provide free land for the development of airport, with multimodal (rail, road, metro, waterways, etc) hinterland connectivity.

• Provide free trained security.

• Provision of water, electricity and other utilities at reduced rate.

• Provide 20 per cent share of Viability Gap Funding. Northeastern states, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Union Territories to provide 10 per cent share.

• State governments are encouraged to provide additional concessions.

3) Concessions from airport operators:

• No landing, parking or other charges.

• No Terminal Navigation Landing Charges (TNLC).

• Allow selected airlines to manage the ground handling of flights.

• Route Navigation and Facilitation Charges (RNFC) will be applied on UDAN-RCS flights by AAI on a discounted rate of 42.50 per cent of normal rates.

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