New Delhi, 29 Apr (PTI): Emphasising that the Indian aviation is just entering the growth phase, Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has said the time is ripe for participation in the largest possible manner in the sector and hoped that the number of fliers will touch 100 million this year. Scindia, who arrived here on the first leg of his visit to North America, also said that capacity building at airports is underway to ensure that there are no bottlenecks in the coming years. After remaining suspended for two years due to the coronavirus pandemic, scheduled international flights to and from India resumed on March 27, with 100 per cent capacity.<\/p>\n
As on date, there were close to about 3,500 flights between Indian and foreign carriers into India, the minister said.\u201dFor a country of 1.3 billion people, the fact that you have 144 million passengers, means that your penetration level even now is only 8 per cent. So that tells you the potential in the years to come,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Responding to a question by PTI during an interactive session held at the Consulate General of India in New York on Thursday, Scindia said, \u201cI think the time is ripe for participation in probably the largest possible manner in the area of civil aviation and I think all international airlines can sense the opportunity and potential\u201d in India.<\/p>\n
The minister began his engagements with discussions with New York-based technology-powered, global air mobility platform Blade. Later in the day, he interacted with members of the Indian diaspora during a session and reception hosted by Consul General of New York Randhir Jaiswal. During the interactive session, Scindia outlined the growth plans for India\u2019s civil aviation industry and also spoke about the safe evacuation of nearly 22,000 students from Ukraine through \u2018Operation Ganga\u2019, following Russia\u2019s invasion of the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had 144 million fliers in India, pre-COVID in the years 2018-19. And our closest competition is the first and second AC of the Indian railways.\u201dI\u2019m looking at a number of close to closing this year at about 100 million, up from about 50 million in COVID years. And I see us reaching almost about 400 million by 2030. So, that\u2019s the potential we are looking at,\u201d Scindia said.<\/p>\n
Noting that capacity building at India\u2019s airports is underway to ensure there is no bottleneck in the next two-three years, Scindia said, \u201cI look at a huge participation of the airline majors not only in terms of flights coming in but also in terms of building our airports\u201d and cited the example of Zurich airport developing the Noida International airport in Jewar, around 70 kilometres from New Delhi.<\/p>\n
He said more and more of such collaboration will happen in the years to come, along with capacity building by India\u2019s domestic players themselves.\u201dSo I see this sector growing tremendously and also all the analogous sectors of the ecosystem, including manufacturing for aircrafts in India,\u201d Scindia said, adding that the thrust is not only on the 777s, and 787 Dreamliners but also on last-mile connectivity.<\/p>\n
Citing the regional air connectivity scheme UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik), he said that Prime Minister Modi has done the greatest service to transportation in India by democratising civil aviation.All the majors in aviation, including Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, are now manufacturing in the country and the fuselage of the Apache helicopters are made in India. There is a tremendous amount of manufacturing happening in India, he highlighted.<\/p>\n
According to him, the Indian aviation sector was in its nascency for a long period of time.Referring to an economic paradigm, he said every industry goes through an \u2018S\u2019 shaped curve, where the bottom half of the \u2018S\u2019 is when the industry is in its nascency, the middle part of the \u2018S\u2019 is when the industry is in the growth phase and the top part of the \u2018S\u2019 is when the industry is attaining maturing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndian aviation is between the nascency phase and the growth phase, just entering the growth phase. So no pun intended but the sky is the limit,\u201d the minister said. Stressing the importance of green energy, Scindia said he was looking at Sustainable Aviation Fuel as a substitute for Air Turbine Fuel as well as at the ambitious target of becoming net zero by 2070 and adding 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur outlook is not an outlook for India alone. It\u2019s an outlook for the region. It\u2019s an outlook for the world,\u201d in line with the concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, he said. and pointed out that it was important to be looking at tackling emissions of airplanes.\u201dCivil aviation as a sector globally only composes hardly 2 per cent of global CO2 emissions. But nevertheless, we need to act responsibly as a sector and therefore, within civil aviation, we\u2019re looking at sustainable aviation fuel as a substitute for ATF,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In this regard, he said the two main hurdles of storage and logistics are being addressed.It has also been decided that by 2024 end, about 96 airports of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) would operate on 100 per cent renewable energy. Also in the works is a carbon mapping exercise for airports and building a green plan going forward, Scindia said.<\/p>\n
On India-US ties, Scindia said he believes that bilateral relations have taken extremely deep roots, especially in the last seven-eight years. \u201cIt has turned into a very comprehensive, strategic relationship\u201d under the Modi government.<\/p>\n
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New Delhi, 29 Apr (PTI): Emphasising that the Indian aviation is just entering the growth phase, Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has said the time is ripe for participation in the largest possible manner in the sector and hoped that the number of fliers will touch 100 million this year. Scindia, who arrived here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-189923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-national"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}