Highlights and vision of India's first integrated civil aviation policy that was approved at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi:
♦ Make India 3rd largest civil aviation market by 2022 from 9th
♦ Push domestic travel to 300 million passengers by 2022 from 80 million now
♦ Scheduled operations to expand from 77 airports now to 127 by 2019
♦ Cargo volumes to increase 4 times to 10 million tonnes by 2027
♦ Cap of Rs 2,500 per ticket on regional routes
♦ Sticky 5/20 rule for airlines to fly overseas replaced with new norms: 20 aircraft or 20 per cent deployment on domestic routes
♦ Flexible, liberalized open skies and code share agreement
♦ Incentives for aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul to make India a hub in South Asia
♦ Skilling of 3.3 lakh personnel by 2025 with certification
♦ Focus also on development of green-field airports and heliports
♦ Focus on ease of doing business through deregulation, procedures and e-governance
♦ Promoting "Make In India" in civil aviation sector
♦ Detained scheme soon to fund operators in regional routes
♦ Bilateral rights and code share agreements to be liberalised
♦ Open skies policy with countries in South Asia on reciprocal basis
♦ Encouragement to states to develop airports
♦ Compensation to Airports Authority for airports within 150 km of existing ones
♦ Promotion of chopper usage with separate regulations soon
♦ Promotion of four heli-hubs initially
♦ Facilitation of helicopter emergency medical services
♦ Customs duty on parts for maintenance units rationalised
♦ Ground handling policy to be replaced with new framework to ensure fair competition
♦ Three ground handling agencies including Air India arms at all major airports
♦ At non-major airports, operator to decide number of ground handling agencies
♦ Domestic scheduled airline, chopper services allowed self-handling at airports
