PUDUCHERRY: Puducherry is going on the domestic air map once again, thanks to BJP government’s UDAN scheme under which SpiceJet is providing connectivity to Hyderabad from July 1.
“The private airline will fly planes between Puducherry and Hyderabad with tickets as cheap as `2,500,” Chief Secretary Manoj Parida told Express.
The date was finalised on Tuesday at a meeting convened by Civil aviation secretary Rajiv Nayan Choubey with Parida and the flight operator, with the latter committing to operate flights from July 1.
The decision comes as a relief to Puducherry flyers, who instead of undertaking an air journey after a road travel to Chennai, can directly fly to Hyderabad, saving much travel time.
Though a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with the Civil Aviation Ministry on September 30 last year under the regional connectivity scheme, the bidding process caused a delay in the commencement of operations.
To enable sustainable flight operations, the Puducherry government has offered free water, electricity and security service and also reduced VAT on Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF), said Parida. According to him, the airline has also evinced interest in operating on Puducherry- Bengaluru sector and could bid for the route in the next tender to be floated in two months time.
The Union Territory was taken off the air map in October 2015 after Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Air India, stopped its operations from here to Bengaluru, barely five months after it started flying planes to the Karnataka capital. Besides sustainability, the conflict over the quantum of viability gap funding (the amount paid to the operator by the government to compensate the losses) was stated to be one of the reasons, as there was no formal agreement between the Puducherry government and the public sector airline in this regard.
The SpiceJet too had operated flights to Bengaluru in 2013, but could not sustain as operational costs could not be met due to poor patronage.
“This time, the airline might have done enough viability studies and hence has come forward to resume operations,” the Chief Secretary said, adding the incentives from the Civil Aviation Ministry and the support extended by the Puducherry government would help address its sustainability issue.