The government’s decision to bar foreign, non-scheduled all-cargo airlines from landing at non-metro airports helped Indian airlines at a time when they were incurring losses due to COVID-19 by increasing their share of international cargo traffic as well as revenue from cargo, Minister for Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia told Parliament on Monday.
“Our carriers... were almost entering a period of insolvency; this has given a glimmer of hope for our carriers within India,” Mr. Scindia told Rajya Sabha about the DGCA’s decision in September, 2020, that said foreign ad-hoc and non-scheduled freighter flights could only operate to airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, thereby barring them from landing at non-metro airports in India. Cargo carried in the belly of passenger aircraft as well as on all-cargo scheduled flights under the bilateral agreement were not affected by the order.
The Minister said the decision had allowed number of freighters in India to increase from eight in 2018 to 28 in 2021 — an increase of 3.5 times.
