The government commenced the second round of bidding under the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) on August 24, 2017 and has brought in a few amendments to ensure increased participation. These amendments include permitting routes with stage length less than 150 km for operations as RCS routes through fixed-wing aircraft, greater flexibility to selected airline operators (SAOs) by way of an increase in the maximum number of flights (with viability gap funding) to 14 for priority areas, allowing SAOs to increase the number of flights on RCS routes at any time to any number, and the removal of minimum performance specifications on non-RCS routes. The last date of submission for initial proposals by airlines has been set as October 26, 2017 and the list of SAOs is likely to be announced by end-November 2017.
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