Union minister Suresh Prabhu has been given the additional charge of Ministry of Civil Aviation. This was necessitate after National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partner Telugu Desam Party (TDP) asked its two ministers –Y S Chowdary and Ashok Gajapathi Raju to resign from the Modi government due to non-acceptance of as their party continued demand for special-category status for Andhra Pradesh.
Minister of Commerce and Industry while assuming additional charge of the Ministry of Civil Aviation said that the Open Skies Policy is leading to tremendous growth in the aviation sector and the benefits of this growth will be seen in increased employment generation.
Increasingly, Indians from small towns are travelling by air for work and vacations, due to increased air connectivity and cheap airfares. This has led to Indian carriers to have an order book of more than 1,000 aircraft mainly led by the low-cost carriers (LCCs).
Open skies is an international policy concept that calls for the liberalization of the rules and regulations of the international aviation industry, especially commercial aviation, in order to create a free- market environment for the airline industry.
