The much-awaited national civil aviation policy that seeks to strengthen regional connectivity and tap the sector's high growth potential was today cleared by the Union Cabinet.
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said the policy is a "game changer" and that the country's aviation sector is poised to become the world's third largest by 2022.
The policy has been finalised after nearly eight months since the Ministry came out with the revised draft in October 2015 and follows many rounds of deliberations with stakeholders. The NDA government had for the first time unveiled the policy draft in November 2014.
"NDA government clears India's first ever integrated National Civil Aviation Policy. This will be a game-changer for the sector," Raju said in a tweet.
In another tweet, the Minister said India would be the third largest civil aviation market by 2022. "To achieve this, we need right intentions, vision, planning and execution," he added.
Significantly, India's domestic air traffic market logged the fastest growth in the world for the 13th consecutive month in April. The market grew at nearly 22 per cent during the month.
"India's domestic traffic soared 21.8 per cent, marking the 20th month of double-digit traffic growth and the 13th consecutive month it has led the domestic markets," global airlines body, International Air Transport Association (IATA) had said last month.
Initially, the policy was expected to be finalised in the last financial year as certain proposals were to be in effect from April 1, 2016.
However, the government had been moving back and forth on the policy seeking to sort out the differences among stakeholders including on 5/20 norm.
In the run-up to the framing of policy, various provisions including the issue of international flying norm witnessed extensive debate, with legacy carriers opposing any changes to the rule, while start-up airlines frantically demanding its scrapping.
Significantly, AirAsia Berhad --a key stakeholder in AirAsia India had recently said that it was confident of the Government scrapping the norm.
"...The ruling (5/20 norm) is expected to be revoked along with a new National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP) to be introduced in the near future, given massive lobbying against it," AirAsia Berhad said in its 2015 annual report released yesterday.
Also, Mishra said, there was shortage of pilots and
crew.
"Small aircraft need specialised crew. We need a special initiative from the government to build that up. Pilots and engineers can't come overnight. We need to train them," he added.
"India produced only about 200-300 pilots every year. "The Civil Aviation University in China has 2000 trainers. It has 265 aircraft for training purposes," the ICAO official pointed out.
Observing that aviation created high value jobs and has multiplier economic effect, Mishra said "one aircraft that comes to the country, creates 600 jobs, directly and indirectly. These were not regular jobs that paid Rs 5,000 or Rs 10,000 a month but those that paid Rs 50,000 or Rs 60,000."
"Essentially, necessary infrastructure needs to be created for RCS to become successful. Airports Authority of India has readied 55 airports and there they can start the RCS," Mishra added.
Meanwhile, the FICCI report suggested that Viability Gap Funding under RCS be extended from the proposed three to five years or more as these airfields might taken even longer to become financially sustainable.
RCS operators should also be allowed to use pilots, cabin and maintenance crew of other airlines and allow foreign registered aircraft for operations.
