Friday, 24 June 2016

Centre Planned To Turn Desolated Airports into SEZs

New Delhi: Following the cheap fares of airlines tickets in the lean season that will come into effect from July, the centre is ‘mulling a plan’ to replace all the unused airports in India into special economic zones or SEZs. The aim is to work on contract with the aircraft leasing companies to park their aircrafts and planes and showcase those to the potential customer.


The civil aviation secretary R.N. Choubey, in this context, added: “I met someone who said we have so many airports in the country. Is it possible for us to declare some of them as SEZs and allow the airports to be used for two things- one is for leasing companies all over the world to come and park their aircraft here.”
While addressing an event organized by ASSOCHAM in New Delhi yesterday, Choubey also noted that aircraft companies can park 520 to 100 vehicles in one deserted airport. The first airport to be utilized for this business proposal is the AAI Airport of Hyderabad.
Notably, it was only yesterday, when the major Indian airlines announced a reduction of air-fares by at least 30 percent to beat the lean season. The airways companies have issued the off in ticket prices from June to mid-October. “We have noticed that fares have come down by 25-30% on most routes compared to just one week ago! The end of the summer holiday season is in sight now, so demand had started to cool off in the last week. Airlines are attempting to fill up the low-season inventory of July and August in advance,” said Aloke Bajpai, chief executive officer and co-founder at travel meta search engine ixigo.com.

Two leading airways, SpiceJet Ltd and IndiGo has announced a promotional monsoon bonanza sale in with fares starting from Rs.444 and Rs.789, respectively.

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