SpiceJet awarded 36 new sectors including Bhavnagar of Gujarat under UDAN III scheme

Gurugram: SpiceJet, the private sector airliner was today awarded 36 new sectors including Bhavnagar in Gujarat under the third round of bidding for the Government of India’s UDAN Scheme.

Out of these 36, 02 will cater to the unserved markets of Ghazipur and Jharsuguda whereas 09 will be for underserved markets of Adampur, Agra, Belagavi, Bhavnagar, Durgapur, Gwalior, Kishangarh, Pantnagar, and Tanjore, Chairman and Managing Director, SpiceJet Ajay Singh informed today.

“UDAN has been a fabulously successful scheme which has provided unprecedented air connectivity and all credit for this goes to the present government. We have been the most enthusiastic supporter of this great initiative from the very beginning and we look forward to operating on the routes that we have been allotted today,’ he said.

SpiceJet is India’s largest and most organized regional player operating a fleet of 46 Boeing MAX and NG aircraft and 27 Bombardier Q400 planes. The airline had placed an order for 50, 90-seater Q400s in 2017 of which five have already been inducted last year.

Last year, SpiceJet was awarded 20 sectors under the second round of bidding for UDAN. Out of these 20, 15 catered to unserved markets of Kannur (Kerala), Darbhanga (Bihar), Ozar (Nashik), Pakyong (Sikkim), Kishangarh (Rajasthan), Lilabari (Assam), Thanjavur (Tamil Nadu), Bokaro(Jharkhand) and Solapur (Maharashtra) whereas five were for
underserved markets like Jaisalmer (Rajasthan).

In 2017, SpiceJet was awarded six proposals under the first phase of the UDAN scheme and was the only participating airline that did not seek viable gap funding from the
government. SpiceJet has launched operations on all the awarded UDAN I routes.

With the recent addition of the Kolkata-Lilabari-Kolkata flight, SpiceJet now operates 23 flights under UDAN on the routes of Delhi-Kishangarh-Delhi, Kolkata-Pakyong-Kolkata,
Guwahati-Pakyong-Guwahati, Mumbai-Porbandar, Mumbai-Kandla-Mumbai, Hyderabad- Puducherry-Hyderabad, Jaipur-Jaisalmer-Jaipur, Delhi-Adampur-Delhi, Ahmedabad-
Jaisalmer-Ahmedabad, Surat-Jaisalmer-Surat and Delhi-Kanpur-Delhi.

DeshGujarat