Union Cabinet Approves the New Civil Aviation policy, Flying to Become Cheaper

BANGALORE: The much-awaited civil aviation policy comes with a bundle of hope for many, including unemployed pilots and new airliners.  Flying certainly will become cheaper with the ceiling on fares for short span journeys, where a 30-minute air travel will be capped at 1,500 and those between half and one hour at 2500. Not just the ticket prices but also the fare refunding rules have been made trouble-free and customer friendly. It is now the responsibility of Airlines to refund the cancelled tickets within 15 days of booking, irrespective of the medium (agents or self) through which the bookings were made. Also, the cancellation charges cannot go beyond the basic fare in any case.

The new reform sticks firmly to the existing condition of having 20 planes to operate internationally. However, it curbs the additional requirement of having 5 years experience in domestic operations to fly abroad.  This will benefit the new comers in Airline industry such as Air Asia and Air Vistra, although old operators such as Indigo and Jet Airways have raised objections against it.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that the new aviation policy will give an impetus to affordability, regional connectivity, safety and infrastructure, which is vital for transforming India. He further added that the reforms are meant to transform aviation industry for the benefit of passengers.

As per the new policy, a corpus will be instituted to deal with the feasibility issues faced by airliners operating at low fares. All airlines and many of the stated governments are expected make contributions to this. But to pay for subsidizes flights; the airlines will be charged access on domestic routes. Reports also claim that non-core security tasks at the airport will be handed over to private agencies on a contract basis.

India will also enter into the bilateral ‘Open Sky’ policy arrangement with the SAARC countries and countries beyond 5000 kms from Delhi, to liberalize regulations of the international aviation industry. The reform aims to empower domestic carriers and to boost airline traffic in South Asian countries. An official report stated that the government plans to increase ticket sales to 300 million a year, within the next 6 years.

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