The government plans to roll out new guidelines for regional and remote air connectivity by end of the year, a senior civil aviation ministry official told FE on Wednesday. While new airlines like Tata-SIA’s Vistara and AirAsia India will likely be permitted to start overseas operations in return for meeting local obligations, the broad policy outline is expected to see little changes from the draft guidelines that has already come under sharp criticism from domestic carriers like Jet Airways, GoAir and Spicejet.
?We plan to announce the new regional route policy very soon. The target is to unveil it before December-end. We have received all the suggestions from the stakeholders, but it may not be possible to incorporate all the views,? the ministry official said.
Announced in August, the draft guidelines on remote and regional area air connectivity mark a major shift in policy by mandating domestic airlines to match capacity on regional/remote routes with that deployed on a new category of 30 trunk routes by end-2016. This would force large airlines to enter into code-share with air charter operators who fly small 7 to 20 seater aircraft.
Last month, several airlines wrote to the ministry highlighting their concerns that the new policy would lead to overcapacity and sharply increase their costs at a time when the industry is already burdened under cumulative losses of almost R50,000 crore. Vistara, which expects to start operations later this month, said that the rules should apply to new airlines only after five years.
Moreover, civil aviation minister P Ashok Gajapathi Raju recently told FE that the plans for removal of the 5/20 rule may be connected with the new regional route policy. The 5/20 rule says that domestic airlines can start international operations only after completion of five years of local operations and with a fleet of 20 aircraft.
?The 5/20 (rule) to my mind is antiquated. We will replace it because right now airlines are forced into India. On the international side, India has a lot of unused bilaterals. If an Indian player uses the bilaterals we would be rather happy. If an Indian player wants to give regional connectivity and also wants to fly abroad and does not have 20 aircraft, are we going to not utilise bilaterals?,? he had said.