Soon Islands in Andaman is going to be connected through Seaplanes as the civil aviation ministry has approved operations on 13 water aerodrome routes.
This amphibious planes have the facility to take off and land from places where there is no such facility of landing strips and runways even. These planes generally operate from sea to sea or sea to land.
For the first time the aviation ministry had invited bids for regional flights under the regional connectivity scheme ‘Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN)’ scheme and has received bids for flights from 13 water-ports, of which five are from Andaman and the rest, from Gujarat and Kerala, a spokesperson from the ministry said.
Under the UDAN 3 scheme, the islands of Andaman to be connected through seaplanes are Campbell Bay, Car Nicobar, Swaraj Dweep, Hutbay, Shaheed Dweep, Long Island and Diglipur, according to the report.
An official said the minister will approve the move this week following which the proposed routes will be awarded by June.The decision to let seaplanes to operate was taken after an broad survey was carried out by both the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
As per report,this move by the government to connect islands through seaplanes will boost up tourism in Andaman.
As added by a ministry spokesperson, “Andaman Airways Private Limited and Spicejet have shown interest to operate sea planes. The window for UDAN 3 opened on 2nd November and financial bids were opened on January 2. Total 111 proposals have been received by 15 airlines to connect different sectors out of which 13 are for water aerodromes.
Such planes are usually used by Maldives and Mauritius tourism ministry. In India, 10 and 14-seater amphibious plane operations are allowed, but they have to give 50% of the seats on discounted rate, as per the standard norm of the scheme. The government will then compensate the operators by applying a cess on more popular routes connecting bigger cities.
