Gurugram-based Air Taxi and Big Charter have emerged as the main winners in the fourth phase of regional connectivity scheme or UDAN, Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik, CNBC-TV18 has learnt.
A total of eight aviation companies, including old players such as SpiceJet and IndiGo, have emerged as winners for 76 routes of UDAN-4, documents reviewed by CNBC-TV18 showed.
Air Taxi or Aviation Connectivity and Infrastructure Developers Pvt Ltd have won the most number of routes under UDAN-4. Air Taxi has won a total of 22 routes including Hissar-Dharamshala, Hissar-Chandigarh, Hissar-Dehradun, Kanpur(Chakeri)-Chitrakoot, Kanpur(Chakeri)-Moradabad, Kanpur(Chakeri)-Aligarh, Chitrakoot-Prayagraj(Allahabad), Chitrakoot-Varanasi, Kanpur-Shravasti, Shravasti-Varanasi, and Shravasti-Prayagraj.
Air Taxi is followed by Big Charter Pvt Ltd or Flybig, which is likely to have secured 16 routes under UDAN-4. These include Guwahati-Tezu, Tezu-Imphal, Guwahati-Rupsi, Rupsi-Kolkata, Aizwal-Tezpur, Agartala-Dibrugarh, Shillong-Passighat and Passighat-Guwahati.
Air India’s regional arm Alliance Air is the third on the winners’ list with 14 routes including Bilaspur to Bhopal, Bareilly to Delhi, Cochin International Airport to Agatti, Guwahati to Shillong, Dimapur to Shillong, Imphal to Silchar, and Delhi to Shimla.
India’s largest airline IndiGo continues to bet on regional connectivity scheme UDAN and has won at least eight routes which include Dibrugarh-Shillong, Silchar-Shillong, Agartala-Shillong, and Shillong-Imphal.
Simultaneously, low-cost airline SpiceJet has secured routes connecting Lakshadweep with Agatti-Minicoy and Agatti-Kavaratti routes.
One route each has been won by Turbo Megha Airways and Ventura Airconnect. Turbo Megha has won Diu-Surat while Ventura has emerged as an operator for Diu-Vadodara.
After three rounds of bidding under Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS)- Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN), 688 valid routes were awarded, out of which 281 routes were operationalized connecting 45 RCS airports & 5 heliports.
Under UDAN, airlines are provided incentives to fly RCS flights by central and state governments for a period of three years. The union and state governments also provide Viability Gap Funding, which is shared between Ministry of Civil Aviation and the State Government in the ratio of 80:20 whereas for the States in North Eastern region/Union Territories the ratio is 90:10. The airlines are required to commit around 50 percent of the seats as RCS seats (limited to 40 seats) on RCS flights.
Excise Duty for airlines is at the rate of 2 percent on Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) for airlines at RCS Airports for RCS Flights for a period of three years. The airport operator is also required to not levy any Terminal Navigation Landing Charges (TNLC) on RCS Flights and Route Navigation and Facilitation Charges (RNFC) are to be levied by AAI on a discounted basis at 42.50 percent of Normal Rates on RCS Flights.
