Govt wants to know why UDAN didn’t always fly

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : The civil aviation ministry will soon start a detailed evaluation of routes awarded under the government’s regional connectivity initiative, known as the Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik (UDAN) scheme, which offers flight subsidies to underserved or unserved destinations. The assessment will aim to determine the reasons behind airlines’ failure to launch flights or continue flying them despite the subsidy offer, two officials familiar with the development said on condition of anonymity.

The detailed assessment is happening at a time about 46% of the total flights, which started operating under the regional connectivity scheme (RCS), have been discontinued due to low demand, lack of support from state governments and infrastructure constraints. The government auditor has also raised concerns about the lower-than-anticipated success of the scheme.

Government data shows that 260 flights and routes are operational under the UDAN scheme as of date. Of the 1,154 routes awarded under the scheme, spanning Phase 1 to Phase 4 until 16 May, airlines have initiated flights on only 475 routes.

One of the officials said one of the objectives of the study is to understand the factors that resulted in an inactive route and to identify the shortcomings. The scheme, launched for a period of 10 years in October 2016, may be tweaked based on the results of the study if the government decides to extend its tenure.

“The study will focus on what went right for the UDAN routes which started operations after being allocated and what went wrong for routes which were allocated but did not commence flights," the official said. “The idea is to identify the areas where either the policy support was not sufficient to support an airline and the