Regional Connectivity Scheme: To Fund Flights To Smaller Cities, Plane Tickets To Cost (A Little) More

New Delhi: Get ready to pay a little more to fly within India.

To fund its plan to connect smaller cities in the country, the government has announced new fees that will have to be paid by airlines on popular routes. But if your flight is full, you're unlikely to pay more than Rs 50 each way; if all seats are not sold out, you'll pay an extra Rs 100.

The longer the flight, the higher the fee for airlines. The government has fixed three categories: Rs 7,500 for flights covering 1,000 km; Rs 8,000 for flights covering up to 1, 500 km; and Rs 8,500 for distances above that.

The government expects to collect around 400 crores per year from these new tariffs.

When the government announced its  "Regional Connectivity Scheme", it pledged that flights that are an hour long would cost just Rs 2,500.

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To subsidise these cheap flights in under-serviced areas, it said a small levy would be introduced on existing routes to help pay for the scheme.

The UDAN scheme (an acronym for Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik or "helping the average Indian fly") is to be introduced in January.

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The government has also identified airports that are either unused or under-utilised, even though they have infrastructure like a terminal building and air traffic control towers. It has also committed to spending Rs. 4,000 crore ($598 million) to reopen 50 disused airports within four years.