Dubai, Abu Dhabi may stay out of bounds for Jet

New Delhi: The government is unlikely to permit Jet Airways to fly to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the near future. The Naresh Goyal-owned airline, which managed to obtain permission recently to launch flights to various destinations in the Gulf routes, has been pushing hard for permission to launch flights to these two destinations since they are considered highly profitable. At this juncture, the government does not want to allocate traffic rights for Dubai and Abu Dhabi to any other carrier except Air India, government sources said.
The national carrier has a right of first refusal for all overseas routes and the Gulf region was exclusively reserved for it till recently. While the government has cleared Jet Airways flights to Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain, the private sector airline was not allotted traffic rights to Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Total entitlements of Indian carriers to Dubai and Abu Dhabi stand at 21,950 and 7,420 seats per week, respectively. Following its merger with Indian, Air India is utilising 20,002 seats per week for Dubai and 3,313 for Abu Dhabi.
The utilisation would be higher if the airline had more aircraft.In July, Jet Airways had applied for rights on routes to Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. In September, the government granted the airline rights to operate on Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain from January 1, 2008.
08/10/07 Nirbhay Kumar/Economic Times

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Categories: Foreign Oct 2007, Jet Airways Oct 2007