Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 14: In a significant step, which will immensely help tourists as well as inhabitants of the Ladakh region, Air India and GoAir have set in motion the process of increasing the number of their flights on Leh-Delhi sector to 28 a week. On the other side, Secretary, Civil Aviation Ministry has directed Director General Civil Aviation to hold parleys with all the airlines operating on this route and persuade them to keep the fares at a reasonable and affordable level particularly for the locals.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that in a recent meeting held under the chairmanship of Secretary, Civil Aviation Ministry, the CMD Air India informed that as against three flights per week on Leh-Delhi Sector, Air India will be operating seven flights a week from the current month onward in order to cater the rush of tourists as well as to meet the requirement of inhabitants of Ladakh region.
The Director General Civil Aviation, Dr Prabhat Kumar informed the Secretary, Civil Aviation, Ashok Lavasa that in addition to Air India, GoAir and Jet Airways are also operating on this sector and GoAir will increase number of flights from 14 per week to 21 per week. However, Jet Airways will continue with its five flights a week schedule, sources said.
Disclosing that Air India and GoAir have already set in motion the process of increasing the number of their flights, sources said, “with this decision there will be five flights daily on Leh-Delhi sector from the current month itself as GoAir will operate 3 flights and Air India and Jet Airways one each”.
They said that DGCA has certified 22 A319 and all A320s of Air India, eight B737-700 of Jet Airways and four A320s of GoAir to operate on Delhi-Leh route.
About regulating passenger fare and cargo charges, sources said, “during the meeting, Secretary Civil Aviation directed the DGCA to discuss the issue with the airlines to try to impress upon the need to keep the fares at a reasonable and affordable level particularly for locals while maintaining the viability of commercial operations”. The Civil Aviation Ministry further directed the DGCA to apprise it about the outcome of the meeting as inhabitants of Ladakh region are the worst sufferers of sky rocketing airfares, sources added.
It is pertinent to mention here that Economic Advisor had discussed these issues with representatives of scheduled domestic carriers and stressed the need for gradation of fares for locals and tourists. The airlines had indicated that they could consider the same.
“In the meeting, DGCA stated that though the airfares are not regulated by the Government, there was perhaps need for airlines to offer more tickets in the lowest bucket while putting a cap on the process for tickets in the highest bucket”, sources informed.
The carrying of mortal remains and reduced charges for a stretcher patient also came up for discussion in the meeting and DGCA informed that instructions have already been issued to ensure that all the scheduled carriers carry mortal remains in their flights provided the Public Health Rules are complied with.
“The charges for a stretcher patient should not exceed that of fares equivalent to six seats”, Dr Prabhat Kumar informed Secretary while quoting the instructions and said that directions have also been issued to the airlines to ensure that cancelled flights in Leh sector are followed by additional flights the next day subject to clear weather conditions.
The up-gradation of Leh Airport, which has hit the road-block due to disinclination of Air Headquarters to provide 14.63 acres of land, also came up for discussion with Secretary Civil Aviation directing the Chairman Airport Authority of India to take up the issue on priority with the IAF Headquarters as it (IAF) had earlier given the favourable indication, sources said, adding “unless Air Headquarters provides land up-gradation of terminal building cannot be carried out”.
The Secretary also directed Chairman AAI to persuade IAF Headquarters for providing one more bay for use by civil aircrafts. Earlier, there were two parking bays and one additional bay was made available by IAF recently but still one more bay is required.
When contacted, Deputy Commissioner, Leh, Simrandeep Singh, confirmed that Air India and GoAir have set in motion the process to increase their flights as per the decisions taken in a meeting chaired by Secretary, Civil Aviation Ministry.
“The issue of limited number of flights and sky-rocketing airfares was repeatedly taken up with the Civil Aviation Ministry and our efforts have now yielded some results”, he said, adding “the district administration had even approached the Ministry of Defence through Divisional Commissioner Kashmir for operating IL-76 aircraft in order to provide respite to the inhabitants of the region from exorbitant airfares”.
He, however, said that no decision has been taken by the Defence Ministry on this request. The Deputy Commissioner said that with the increase in number of flights the gap between demand and supply will reduce and subsequently there will be decline in airfares.
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