Almost nine months after the sole airline to operate flights out of the city wound up services, the territorial administration has dangled out a hard-to-resist incentive to attract private operators to the sector.
Under the new scheme launched under the umbrella of tourism promotional initiatives, the Puducherry government will offer Rs. 1,000 each for an aggregate of 200 seats on a daily basis, subject to a cap of 50 seats or a sum of Rs. 50,000 per fixed wing or rotary aircraft.
The incentive is valid for a period of six months and its subsequent renewal would be decided by the government.
The incentive applies to flights and chopper services from “Pondicherry/Karaikal to other destinations and from other destinations to Pondicherry/Karaikal. It shall be only in the form of Rs. 1,000 per seat per carrier per day from Puducherry and from Karaikal.’’
“The incentive will apply irrespective of the occupancy level on the flight,” a top-ranking government official said.
Sources said the initial plan was to, at least, have a couple of flight operators on board on the Puducherry-Bangalore and Puducherry-Coimbatore sectors. The chopper services would in the Chennai-Puducherry, Puducherry-Karaikal and Karaikal-Chennai sectors.
The incentive would be calculated based on the maximum number of seats allowed for “fixed wing or rotary aircraft’ operating from the Puducherry airport or Karaikal helipad. Altogether, the financial incentives shall be subject to a maximum of 200 seats per day for all airlines and helicopter companies put together.
“Under the scheme, we would be shelling out close to Rs. 2 lakh on every day of flight or chopper operations,” said R.Mounissamy, Director of Tourism.
There has been no dearth of enquiries from tourists on prospects of resumption of flights between Puducherry and Bangalore, from where almost 60 per cent of the weekend visitors originates.
Puducherry had fallen off the air traffic control radar and was the only administrative capital without air connectivity, after the lone ranger in this sector Spicejet wound up service of its Bombardier Q 400 aircraft on January 31 this year citing operational losses.
Spicejet launched Puducherry-Bangalore flights on January 17, 2013 which had a flying time of about 50 minutes. SpiceJet gradually scaled up its services from thrice a week to four days a week after the1500-metre runway was certified as fit to handle flights with full passenger loads. In the period preceding the pull-out, the carrier was operating six days a week at the rates of Rs. 2,000-2,500 and peak tariffs of Rs. 5,000-6,000.
For several months, the government has been negotiating with airliners such as Air India, Spicejet, JetConnect, Air Costa and Air Asia that have ATR/Bombardier fleets. In fact, sources say that Alliance Air, the budget version of Air India, could well be the first to enter the fray of commercial operations.
Only representatives of Alliance Air and Pawan Hans participated in a meeting of airline operators convened by Tourism Department a few days ago. Though operators have been demanding viability gap funding as a cover for potential operational loss, the government has found it untenable. The incentive is being offered as an alternative. The sustainability of operations, especially of the chopper services, would depend on competitive pricing, sources said.
Aviation industry sources point out that crucial as it is for the government to re-start flight connectivity at the earliest, the long-term challenge would be the acquisition of about 220 acres of land in the Tamil Nadu territory for runway extension and establishment of state-of-the-art navigational facilities to enable operations of wide-bodied aircraft.
