Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Sunday that the country's civil aviation sector is about to register an unprecedented growth in terms of number of passengers, aircraft and airports. He claimed that in the next five years, the number of passenger planes in the country will cross 1200, while the number of air passengers is expected to reach 400 million.

Scindia said on the occasion of the commencement of the services of Akasa Air that this is a very important day in the history of civil aviation sector in India. The first flight of the airline took off from Mumbai to Ahmedabad, which was flagged off by Scindia.

Scindia said, “This is the first time in the last eight years that an airline has started in India. In the last almost two decades, we all only heard that how difficult it is to run an airline company, they have to face many difficulties internally as well. During this, seven airlines were also closed. ”He said that the civil aviation sector was badly affected due to the coronavirus epidemic but now it is back on the right track again. 

The Civil Aviation Minister said that with the launch of Akasa Air, the revival of Jet Airways and the revival of Air India, the indications are very clear that it is a growing market. "This is a market that is going to be absolutely healthy," he said. 

Scindia said that India will have 400 million air passengers by 2027 including domestic and international passengers. The number of air passengers in India was 60 million in 2013-14 and about 200 million in 2019-20. "In this way, in terms of passenger numbers, there has been an increase of about 250 per cent in these five years," the minister said. By 2027, India will have about 1,200 aircraft. By 2030, we aim to increase the number of airports to 220.