NEW DELHI: Without naming the beleaguered airline Jet Airways and the trouble caused by its suspension of operations in the domestic aviation market, union aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday said that the government is confident of solving the turbulences which currently exist in the aviation market.
“I am going to avoid the name...We have more planes flying today in the domestic sector than we had at that point of time (the particular carrier (Jet Airways) when it ceased operations in April). If you look at the correction in the domestic market by the end of this month, we will have 580 planes flying up from 540-550 last month,” Puri said while addressing the Confederation of Indian Industry’s National Council Meeting.
He added that they are confident of solving the disruption caused in the long-haul flight as Jet was the leading private player on international sectors operating from India.
“That carrier also had wide-bodied aircraft which were operating on long-haul routes and we are addressing that issue and I am confident that we can solve that problem. I am very confident we can solve both in terms of domestic capacity...providing opportunities to domestic carriers and in terms of other actions we will take,” Puri said.
The new aviation mister didn’t specify the measures the government will bring in to overcome the temporary glitch or spoke about the revival of Jet Airways.
Failing to secure funding from lenders, Jet Airways had suspended its operations in April. Since then the airline and its lenders have been searching for new investors, but hasn’t found any success yet.
The grounding of a major player severely affected the country’s aviation growth story. After growing at double-digit figure for 52 months, the domestic air passenger traffic growth started slowing down since January this year and fell by 4.5 percent on year in April. Puri said the domestic aviation market is highly under-penetrated at just 7 per cent and the government has every intention to exploit its full potential. “Civil aviation sector is growing at 17 per cent but the penetration in just 7 per cent.Imagine what the state will be when penetration reaches to 20-30 per cent,” Puri said.