Government deciding to increase airfares by imposing Rs 8500 levy per flight

Book your air tickets in advance as the Government is deciding to increase the airfares up-to Rs8500 per flight on major routes so that they can fund the regional connectivity scheme. The best part is that the burden is not put on single passenger but on the whole flight so the price increase would be nominal as compared to the ticket price. Another fact is that the amount will also depend on the number of seats in the plane so it means that more the number of seats mean less burden on each passenger.

R N Chubey, Civil Aviation Secretary has confirmed that the levy would be up-to Rs8500 per flight depending upon the distance. This decision has been taken to strengthen the ambitious scheme UDAN ( Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik). Under this scheme small will also be connected by air and will allow general public to travel by air at affordable prices.

The Government took this decision to raise funds to provide viability gap for the flights operated under the regional connectivity scheme, the levy would be imposed on major flight routes only like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru.

Further the Ministry is deciding to levy Rs7500 per flight for up-to 1,000 kilometers, Rs8,000 for up-to 15,00 kilometers and Rs85,00 for above 15,00 kilometers.

The Government has also made a special fund called RDF (Regional Connectivity Fund) and he money collected from the levy would be kept in this fund and the estimated amount which would be collected is around Rs 400 crore per year in addition to this 20% would be done by the State Governments.

Obviously the extra burden of this levy will be transferred on passengers.

Interestingly the for distance of 476- to 500 kilometers half of the flight seats operated in a particular flight under UDAN would be available at Rs 2500 for one hour duration.