Spurt in foreign airlines rights worry desi ones

New Delhi: It's now the turn of the struggling domestic aviation industry to seek protectionism from mega global airlines that have flooded Indian market with flights and dirt cheap fares. While the common traveller is not complaining, desi carriers have approached the aviation ministry and voiced their concern over the massive increase in foreign airlines' entitlement to fly to India.
In last five years (2004-08), foreign airlines' capacity has increased 240% from about 3 crore to nearly 8 crore one-way seats per annum. The biggest cause of worry, which is threatening domestic airlines' survival, is the fact that the big airlines are no longer offering point to point flights between India and their home bases. Places like Dubai, Singapore, Vienna and London have become Indian travellers' gateways to the world on airlines from these countries.
Indian airlines pointed out that the objective of traffic rights is to ensure sufficient capacity for point to point traffic between one country and the other. "In the absence of adequate country to country traffic and good hub airports in India, Indian carriers cannot fully use their entitlements. Gulf carriers like Emirates, Gulf Air, Qatar and Etihad have been using their Indian capacity primarily to carry traffic between India and US, UK, Europe, Africa and Australia over their hubs," said an official. Southeast and European carriers also follow the same pattern of operations.
The aviation ministry is aware of the growing might of foreign carriers and the damage it is inflicting on desi ones but can do little about that.
13/04/09 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Foreign Apr 2009, Indian Aviation- In General Apr 2009