Air India decides to register operational profit in current fiscal: Sinha

Air India decides to register operational profit in current fiscal: Sinha

National carrier Air India plans to register operational profit in the current fiscal.

The Dollar Business Bureau

On January 20, Union Minister of State Jayant Sinha announced, national carrier Air India’s plans to register operational profit in the current fiscal as the minister said that he observed a drastic change in growth of the Civil Aviation Sector from 20 to 25%. 

Sinha said, there was an upsurge of passenger traffic by 23.5% in December, 2016 rather than a decline. The minister also stated that demonetisation has not affected the Civil Aviation Industry, therefore it also failed to affect Air India’s performance. The profit gained in the last financial year was Rs.105 crore. 

Although there was loss in the first two-quarters of the financial year, it rebounded to profit in the latter. He conceded that performance of Air India remained low in the first two-quarters of financial year. But after a peer view, Sinha decided to register operational profit in the current fiscal since the loss has been recovered in the latter. This measure has been so taken as the performance of the airlines is also based on fuel prices. 

The minister believes that Civil sector has growth potential. He was sharing his views during his recent dissemination at Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur. And added, that the Indian Civil Aviation Industry is one of the important contributors in the economic development of the country. Furthermore, he conferred that due to land acquisition problems, it is not-possible to establish new airports. But government has plans to enhance the capacity of prevailing terminals in future.

Referring to the government scheme – UDAN (Ude Desh ke Aam Naagrik) he said Jamshedpur would have air connectivity shortly since they are currently examining the received contracts. 

The scheme has been initiated to improve air connectivity to and from unserved and underserved airports and to ensure inexpensive travelling experience. 

The route for planned flights services are Jamshedpur – Ranchi – Bokaro – Kolkata. Currently running 75 operational airports and 43 unserved airports would be added under the government scheme. 

Under the scheme the ministry is planning to bring large number of under-served airports in-order to revamp regional air connectivity. The bidding takes place every six months to cover these unserved and under-served airports.

The Dollar Business Bureau - Jan 21, 2017 12:00 IST