NEW DELHI: The recent grant of additional flying rights to Abu Dhabi may lead to similar demand being raised by other Gulf carriers like Emirates and Qatar. Top aviation ministry sources said being one country, individual demands of the UAE's seven emirates or principalities for more bilateral for their airlines are difficult to be considered favorably.
"Abu Dhabi and Dubai are barely 100 km apart. Some years back, substantial flying rights were given to Emirates of Dubai. Now 36,670 more weekly seats over three years have been allowed to Abu Dhabi's Etihad. Demand for more capacity from one region has to be measured and seen in context what Indian carriers and India gets in return," said a top ministry source. While Emirates is learnt to be seeking about 24,000 more weekly seats, Qatar wants double of that.
"All these Emirates are part of UAE and individual demands for more bilateral will be difficult to accede to. Southeast Asia is emerging as the hotbed of economic growth. There is need for more connectivity between India and Southeast Asian countries like Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and even Australia. So, the focus of bilateral will be on this region. Also, Gulf is mainly a transit point for traffic between India and the West and point to point demand has been taken care of by the recent agreement with Abu Dhabi," said the source. However, the aviation ministry says that a final call on deciding bilateral with any place is decided by several geopolitical factors.
Bilaterals are signed to have equal rights for airlines of both countries. But in India's case, the desi carriers' reach is very limited. Only Air India and Jet fly to some points in Europe and North America. These two airlines and low cost carriers IndiGo and SpiceJet fly to some points in the Gulf and Southeast Asia.
"So the problem in dealing with demand for bilateral is what do our carriers get in return? For instance, Turkish Airlines wants a five-fold increase in flying rights to India but no Indian carrier flies to Turkey. We have often asked our airlines if they will go there but so far no one has shown any real interest," said a ministry official.
Most Indian carriers, on the other hand, allege that the aviation ministry has been a bit too liberal in giving flying rights to foreign carriers and this has happened at their cost.
Meanwhile, the ministry has formed a new panel to improve ties with UAE in the aviation space. The four-member panel has aviation secretary K N Shrivastava, aviation ministry joint secretary Prabhat Kumar, Air India chief Rohit Nandan and Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal as members. The inclusion of the Jet supremo comes at a time when many MPs have alleged that the aviation ministry gave extra 37,000 weekly seats to Abu Dhabi to ensure that Etihad buys a 24% stake in Jet for $379 million.
The competition commission of India has sought more information on the Rs 2,058-crore Jet-Etihad deal to take a call on it. CCI chief Ashok Chawla, who is examining this deal, said on Friday: "Our people have asked them for some information. We are awaiting information from Jet and Etihad. There were some issues that they have been asked to (come up with details). When it comes we will take a call."
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment