New Delhi: As election season kicks in with the declaration of the dates for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by the Election Commission, the rush to book private choppers and jets for poll campaigning by major political parties has also begun. According to industry insiders, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has already booked 60% of the available private jets and choppers for political campaigning, leaving the other parties to make do with the rest.
Private jets and choppers have been a favourite for politicians as a means of faster and convenient commutation and to reach out to the remote areas of the country for political campaigning.
This is what makes the otherwise sleepy private jet industry work on their toes during the election season. The demand is so high that private jets and choppers are even brought in from neighbouring countries to ferry politicians to their campaigning sites.
According to the private jet industry, among the VVIPs who use choppers or private jets for all their election campaigning are Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Arun Jaitley, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Kamal Nath, Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan, Naveen Patnaik, Yogi Adityanath, Nitish Kumar, among many others. A director of a leading private jet company, who did not wish to be named, said, “The election season is one of the busiest times, we have requests coming in from all political parties for private jets and choppers. Everybody these days wishes to use such services due to their convenience and the status factor. Almost all our fleets have been booked by political parties till May and we have got our bookings confirmed way back in January itself.”
Asked how many fleets the BJP had booked with them, the director said, “More than half of our fleet has been booked by the BJP, including our large and luxurious Falcon jets. Such luxurious jets are mostly used by senior leaders and ministers for travel during their poll campaigns.”
The typical cost of hiring a business or a private jet is about Rs 2 lakh to Rs 4.5 lakh per hour depending upon the seating capacity and the aircraft and during the election season. The industry also records a very high number of flying hours during this season, ranging from 2,000-3,000 hours of flying during this time. Apart from private jets, choppers are also one of the most sought after air travel mode for reaching out to the remote and hilly areas, as a chopper does not require a runway to land and is more convenient to reach into deep and congested areas for political parties in a lesser time.
Chopper owners also say that during election time, requests from all parties are so high that at times they have to lend and borrow choppers from each other as the industry “works as a family”. A Managing Director of a chopper service provider based in Delhi said. “We have so much demand during this time that we have no fleet left with us. Almost all political parties, including most of the regional parties, use chopper services for their campaigning. We are operating at our full capacity and at times, we also cooperate with each other. If a booking comes from a minister, we cannot deny it; we have to provide them with the chopper. In that case, we lend it from our fellow companies. We work as a family. And everybody has a good business during this time. Therefore, there is a healthy competition.”
For the chopper industry, the cost of chopper services per hour ranges somewhere between Rs 70,000 to Rs 3 lakh and each chopper registers flying hours of more than 6,000 hours. According to estimates, the chopper industry earned over Rs 120 crore during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
The Model Code of Conduct prevents politicians to use state-owned private choppers or jets for campaigning. Even industrialists and business owners share their private jets and choppers with politicians for the purpose of campaigning. Private jet industry insiders said that DGCA guidelines mandate VVIPs to fly only a twin engine chopper and private jets, and this also increases the pressure because such choppers are less in number in the country. “We have to follow DGCA guidelines. Whenever a minister or a VVIP is flying, we have to ensure it is a twin engine chopper or jet. This is done to ensure their safety so that in case a single engine fails, the other engine can help them land safely. Such choppers are limited and we have to bring in some from abroad to accommodate the rising demand in the country,” an industry insider said.