2023 was an eventful year for the Ministry of Civil Aviation as India’s domestic air passenger traffic touched record high and 60 new RCS routes commenced during the year.

According to the Ministry, on November 19 this year, airlines in India flew 4,56,910 domestic passengers. This was highest single-day air traffic since the pandemic hit, marking a remarkable 7.4 per cent surge above pre-COVID averages-a clear sign of recovery and resilience in the skies.

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A total of 60 New RCS routes commenced w.e.f 01 January, 2023 to 21 December, 2023, the Ministry said.

A total of 6 Airports Rourkela, Hollongi, Jamshedpur, Cooch Behar, Utkela & Shivamogga operationalized,

12 new RCS routes commenced in North Eastern States in the country and 154 new RCS routes awarded under UDAN 4.2 & 5.0.

RCS-UDAN was launched in 2016 to enable air operations on unserved/underserved routes connecting different regions, promote balanced regional growth and make flying affordable for the masses. RCS-UDAN is a self- financing scheme, with a nominal levy for each departure on main (trunk) routes to cross subsidize the operations of UDAN flights.

Among the other achievements of the Ministry, over 91 lakh passengers availed the facility of Digi Yatra and more than 35 lakh users downloaded the app.

Digi yatra is a project conceived to achieve contactless, seamless processing of passengers at Airports based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT). The project basically envisages that any traveller may pass through various checkpoints at the airport through paperless and contactless processing using facial features to establish the identity. Passengers can enroll on the platform from the comfort of their home.

“So far, over 35 lakh users have downloaded the Digi Yatra app,” the Ministry said.

Digi Yatra has been launched at 13 airports.

At Delhi, Bengaluru and Varanasi airports on 01.12.2022. At Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata and Vijayawada on 31.03.2023 and at six airports namely Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Cochin, Guwahati, Jaipur and Lucknow during August, 2023.

“Since its launch, more than 91 lakh passengers have availed the facility of Digi Yatra to travel through the airports. Eventually, all the airports will be covered with Digi Yatra in a phased manner,” the Ministry said.

During 2023, three Greenfield airports, namely, Mopa, Shivammogga and Rajkot have been operationalized.

Government of India has formulated a Greenfield Airports Policy, 2008 which provides guidelines, procedure and conditions for establishment of new Greenfield Airports in the country. Government of India has so far accorded ‘in-principle’ approval for setting up of 21 Greenfield Airports across the country, namely, Mopa in Goa, Navi Mumbai, Shirdi and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra, Kalaburagi, Vijayapura, Hassan and Shivamogga in Karnataka, Dabra (Gwalior) in Madhya Pradesh, Kushinagar and Noida (Jewar) in Uttar Pradesh, Dholera and Rajkot in Gujarat, Karaikal in Puducherry, Dagadarthi, Bhogapuram and Orvakal (Kurnool) in Andhra Pradesh, Durgapur in West Bengal, Pakyong in Sikkim, Kannur in Kerala and Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh across the country.

Out of these, 12 Greenfield airports, namely Durgapur, Shirdi, Sindhudurg, Pakyong, Kannur, Kalaburagi, Oravakal, Kushinagar, Itanagar, Mopa, Shivammogga and Rajkot have been operationalized.

DGCA has processed 23908 number of flight crew licensing issue and renewal applications till date through the single window digital platform of eGCA during 2023.