India's ambitious regional air connectivity drive has hit significant financial turbulence, with the government spending nearly ₹900 crore to maintain airports that currently have no scheduled flights. This substantial expenditure, revealed in recent parliamentary disclosures, underscores the challenges of making air travel viable in the country's smaller towns and cities.
The High Cost of Grounded Hubs
According to documents submitted by the civil aviation ministry to Parliament, a total of ₹878.92 crore has been allocated over eight years since 2017 for the upkeep of 15 'temporarily non-operational' airports. These airports were developed under the Union government's flagship UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) scheme, which aims to connect India's interior regions. Shockingly, seven of these idle hubs were inaugurated only in 2024, highlighting the rapid onset of operational difficulties.
The state of Uttar Pradesh is the hardest hit, housing six of the 15 non-operational airports: Aligarh, Azamgarh, Ambikapur, Moradabad, Shravasti, and Kushinagar. The list also includes two airports each in Madhya Pradesh (Datia, Chitrakoot) and Punjab (Ludhiana, Pathankot), and one each in Odisha (Rourkela), Himachal Pradesh (Shimla), Gujarat (Bhavnagar), Sikkim (Pakyong), and Karnataka (Kalaburagi).
Subsidy Dependence and Commercial Reality
The civil aviation ministry has disbursed over ₹4,300 crore in subsidies to keep regional routes active, with a total government investment of ₹4,638 crore in the UDAN scheme. However, industry experts point to a fundamental flaw in the subsidy-based model. "Subsidy-based schemes like UDAN generally do not work in aviation," said Mark D. Martin, founder of Martin Consulting. He explained that commercial viability hinges on genuine demand, and once the three-year viability gap funding (VGF) period ends, many routes collapse as passengers are unwilling to pay high ticket prices.
The struggles are evident in specific cases. Shimla airport, where the first UDAN flight took off in April 2017, continues to incur a maintenance cost of ₹116.70 crore despite suspended operations. The Pakyong airport in Sikkim, built at a cost of ₹605 crore, has seen a maintenance expenditure of ₹178.75 crore. In contrast, Pathankot remains the least expensive non-operational site, costing ₹5.18 crore.
Why Are These Airports Silent?
In a Rajya Sabha statement on 1 December 2025, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol cited multiple reasons for the suspensions. These include the completion of the three-year VGF tenure, poor visibility conditions at Visual Flight Rules (VFR) airports, daytime runway closures, aircraft shortages, leasing issues, airline discontinuations, and low passenger load factors.
The case of Moradabad airport is illustrative. Operations were suspended in November 2024 by operator FlyBig due to poor visibility and a lack of requisite equipment. The government still spent ₹30.41 crore on its upkeep. FlyBig eventually shut down in October 2025, leaving the airport with no operations. Aviation consultant Martin linked the failure of airlines like FlyBig and TruJet to their heavy reliance on UDAN subsidies without achieving standalone commercial viability.
Despite the challenges, some industry players remain hopeful. Manoj Chacko, founder of regional airline FLY91, emphasized the need for viable operators with clear business plans. "Some of the airports have infrastructure, but there are not enough airlines to operate," he said. He pointed to examples like Jalgaon and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra that have become popular under the scheme, and suggested that with the right business case, routes like Shimla-Delhi could see revived demand.
Currently, under UDAN, there are 93 airports in smaller towns and cities, of which 78 are operational. For the winter schedule (October 2025 to March 2026), India has 126 operational airports. The ongoing situation presents a critical dilemma for policymakers: balancing the social goal of regional connectivity with the hard economics of commercial aviation.
