Minister of state for civil aviation, Jayant Sinha has said that his ministry is targeting a five-fold increase in passenger trips to 1 billion per annum in 15-20 years, in view of the huge growth opportunities the sector holds. Therefore, he said that the government is working towards setting up of new greenfield airports and skilling manpower to achieve this target. He also noted that the billion passenger trips would not come from aircraft alone but also from helicopters, sea planes and passenger drones. He added that many of these have still to be manufactured in the country and it provides tremendous business opportunities to start and develop these new technologies.
Elaborating on passenger drones, Sinha said that this is a big industry and in the coming years, it is likely to touch a trillion dollar mark. He said “We in India have the opportunity to be a leader in this. We are already working on drone regulations so we can set standards, develop different drone technologies.” He noted that like they have made air travel affordable to common people wearing 'hawai chappals, similarly they can go from auto rickshaws to air rickshaws, that is the opportunity.
The minister further said that safety and security is the number one concern and the ministry is working hard on this. He noted that they are working on a unified security architecture with CISF to ensure that all large or small airports have same level of high security. On the job front, the minister said that the industry currently employs about 2 lakh people directly and about 1.2 million people indirectly. He also said that this will quintuple, so they will have 6 million people working over the next few years. Besides, he indicated that revenues in the sector would increase significantly from Rs 2 lakh crore to Rs 8-10 trillion (Rs 8-10 lakh crore) in the next 15-20 years.