Turbo Megha plans to start Nanded-Mumbai, Hyderabad-Cuddapah and Hyderabad-Nanded flights
The financial capital of India inched closer towards getting connected under regional connectivity scheme (RCS) with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Wednesday granting Air Operator Certificate (AOC) to Hyderabad-based Turbo Megha Airways.
Turbo Megha, which flies by the name of Trujet, had plans to start Nanded-Mumbai, Hyderabad-Cuddapah and Hyderabad-Nanded flights.
The airline also has plans to connect Shirdi in future, which is around 240 km from Mumbai. The airline currently operates three ATR-72 aircraft and has acquired one more recently, taking its fleet size to four planes
"Earlier, being a scheduled regional airline, they could not operate to metros of other regions. Under scheduled commuter operator (SCO) category, they can now operate to metros of other regions," said a DGCA spokesperson. Under the category, air operators are allowed to operate with aircraft having a maximum All Up Weight (AUW) not exceeding 40 tonne.
Though the government is going all out to connect a major metro like Mumbai by tweaking the rules, the ground reality may not be so encouraging, as the city airport is already on the verge of saturation with slots difficult to get by.
While the central government has asked for at least 20 slots from the airport for RCS, the airport, in turn, is only able to accommodate eight. The GVK-operated CSIA airport in Mumbai which is considered among the busiest in Asia handled 837 flights a day or one in 65 seconds on an average in fiscal 2017, taking over London's Gatwick airport that had 757 flights a day. It handled 45.2 million passengers in the last fiscal, accounting for 18.6% of the total air traffic in the country.
Airfares under Udan start at around Rs 2,500, which is meant to encourage regional connectivity in the country. The government has created a corpus of Rs 500 crore raised by taxing flights on trunk routes.
Turbo Megha is one of the five operators which won bids to operate on 128 routes connecting 70 airports, of which 31 are unserved under RCS. Air India's regional arm Alliance Air, budget carrier SpiceJet, private air charter operators Deccan Aviation and Air Odisha are the other players which will operate flights to unserved and underserved airports under the Udan scheme.
AFFORDABLE FLYING
- Turbo Megha plans to start Nanded-Mumbai, Hyderabad-Cuddapah and Hyderabad-Nanded flights
- However, the Mumbai airport is able to accommodate only 8 slots against demand of 20
- Alliance Air, SpiceJet, Deccan Aviation and Air Odisha are among other operators under RCS
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