Air India will register operational profit this fiscal: Sinha

Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha today expressed confidence that national carrier Air India will register operational profit in the current fiscal.

"The civil aviation sector in the country is growing by 20 to 25 percent and the sector has tremendous potential for growth," Sinha said.

Asked about the impact of demonetisation on the sector, Sinha said there was no impact, rather the sector has recorded an increase in the passenger traffic by over 23.5 percent in December, 2016.

To a query on whether demonetisation would affect the performance of Air India, which had earned a profit of Rs 105 crore in the last financial year, but posted losses in the first two quarters of the current fiscal, the minister expressed confidence that it would register an operational profit even in the current fiscal.

"Across sectors, performance in first two quarters of a financial year remains low, while the performance records higher in the next two quarters," he said claiming even in the last fiscal, Air India posted losses in the first two quarters, but bounced back to earn a profit.

However, Air India's performance would also depend on fuel prices, the minister said.

Earlier, addressing the students of XLRI, Sinha described the civil aviation section as sunrise sector and said it has tremendous potentials for growth.

"It is an important sector for the growth of Indian economy," Sinha said, admitting it was difficult to establish new airports in the country owing land acquisition problems, "So, the government has plans to enhance the capacity of existing terminals," he said.

Referring to the Centre's regional connectivity service 'UDAN', he said Jamshedpur would have a air-connectivity soon.

"We have received bids for improving regional connectivity from Jamshedpur and the Jamshedpur-Kolkata route is likely to be operational by February-March," he said adding, the bids for flight services on the Jamshedpur-Ranchi-Bokaro-Kolkata routes, was being examined.

Sinha said altogether 75 operational airports in the country and 43 unserved airports would be added up under the UDAN scheme.

There are large number of under-served airports, which will be brought under the scheme to improve regional air connectivity. "Bidding will take place every six months to cover these unserved and under-served airports in future," he said.