NewDelhi: Come winter and you could be flying regional flights in and out of Delhi from the Air Force Base in Hindon, Ghaziabad, as the capitals IGI Airport is choked and currently has no slots offer. The Indian Air Force is open to allowing regional connectivity scheme (RCS) flights from the Hindon base, aviation secretary R N Choubey said on Wednesday.
The ministry is talking to Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd to get its nod to the proposal as under existing rules, a second airport within 150 km of an existing one is not allowed unless the latter is operating at capacity. While Delhi Airport currently has no slots, it has scope for expansion that will increase flight movements in coming years.
The Hindon Air Force base will get a civilian enclave for the RCS flights, secretary Choubey said. Schedule Indian carriers operate regular flights to about 20 defence airfields that have a civil enclave or passenger terminal. These include IAF bases like Gorakhpur, Allahabad and Bikaner and Naval bases like Goa’s Dabolim and Vishakhapatnam.
However, Mumbai airport is being kept out of the second round of RCS flight bidding as it neither has any slots, nor any option like Delhi has in form of Hindon IAF base.
The second round of bidding is expected to see a rise in RCS flights as IndiGo has placed order for turboprops and will participate in it. SpiceJet has also ordered more turboprops for increasing its regional flights. Under the RCS scheme, fares are capped at Rs 2,500 per hour of flying.
The choked metro airports are leading to government thinking of using Hindon for RCS flights to and from Delhi market and also opening up the old airports at Hyderabad and Bangalore which were closed after these cities got new airports for this purpose. Mumbai, however, does not have any such option and its aerial connectivity will remain choked till it gets the second airport five to six years later.
Bureau Report
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