India was targeting 486 existing airports as potential airport for UDAN-RCS, including 406 Unserved airports,[26] 18 Underserved RCS airports (mostly tier-2 regional cities),[27] and 62 NON-RCS airports participating in RCS, mostly tier-2 major city airports or customs airports in tier-2 cities (Dec 2017).[28] In addition, AAI granted in-principal approval to 19 new airports in December 2017.[29]
In December 2017, total operational civil aviation airports in India increased 34% to 131 airports (106 with scheduled civilian flights including some with dual civilian and army use, 3 newly made operational) after the commencement of UDAN-RCS Phase-I (Dec 2017),[30] from the previous figure of 98 total operational airports in 2016 (including 70 civilian airports and the rest army airports with civilian enclaves)
