Speaking in Lok Sabha, India’s Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia announced that the government has set a target of increasing the number of airports from 140 to 220 by 2025. Scindia also said that he was expecting a revival of the sector, scarred by the Covid-19 pandemic, may lead to a substantial jump in passenger traffic.
The minister said that as many as 3.82 lakh passengers flew daily in the past seven days and MoCA has set a target of nearly tripling this to 40 crore by 2023-24. At a time when the global airline industry is facing difficulties, Scindia pointed out that two new airlines, Jet and Akasa, will soon launch their services.
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He addressed the house stating that there were 74 airports in the country till 2014 while 66 new ones were added in the past seven years. “We have nearly doubled the capacity (in seven years). Our resolve is now to take this number up to 220 by 2025," he said. As per the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data, 8.38 crore people travelled on domestic flights in 2021, as compared to 6.3 crore in 2020 — the year of Covid outbreak and long lockdowns. The number of passengers increased from 6.70 crore in 2013-14 to 14.50 crore in 2018-19. The number of planes too increased from 400 from 2013-14 to 710 by 2018-19. Scindia also mentioned that the government has planned to create 33 new domestic cargo terminals, set up 15 new flight training schools for pilots, create more jobs, and increase focus on the drone sector. He said steps will be taken to simplify the process of granting pilot licenses using advanced technologies, while flagging off that over 15% of pilots in India are females against the global average of 5%. “This is another example of women empowerment," he said.
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