New Delhi: The civil aviation ministry has faced charges of favouritism in allocating 36,000 additional seats to Abu Dhabi. Its decision to disallow airlines from flying airbus A380 aircraft into India and its restrictive rules on maiden international operations by domestic airlines have also attracted criticism. Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh in an interview with Aneesh Phadnis and Sharmistha Mukherjee says that he is reviewing various issues related to A380 operations to India. Edited excerpts:
Has the government decided to review its decision on allowing A380s to fly into India.
We have to consider the airport infrastructure. We need to consider what will be the impact on security queues or ground handling after an airbus A380 plane lands with 550 passengers lands at an airport. Can any other aircraft land at that time. I have asked the ministry to find out time slots when these problems would not be there so that other airlines and their passengers are not inconvenienced.
The second problem we will have to address is with regard to bilaterals. With many countries our bilaterals are by number of flights and not by number of seats. We will have to modify them.We will have to discuss it with other governments. I am reviewing these issues.
13/07/13 Aneesh Phadnis & Sharmistha Mukherjee/Business Standard
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Has the government decided to review its decision on allowing A380s to fly into India.
We have to consider the airport infrastructure. We need to consider what will be the impact on security queues or ground handling after an airbus A380 plane lands with 550 passengers lands at an airport. Can any other aircraft land at that time. I have asked the ministry to find out time slots when these problems would not be there so that other airlines and their passengers are not inconvenienced.
The second problem we will have to address is with regard to bilaterals. With many countries our bilaterals are by number of flights and not by number of seats. We will have to modify them.We will have to discuss it with other governments. I am reviewing these issues.
13/07/13 Aneesh Phadnis & Sharmistha Mukherjee/Business Standard
