Emirati carriers pursue passage to India

Aviation officials are pressing India and Pakistan to give Emirati airlines more landing slots to ensure new source markets for their rapidly growing fleets.
Etihad Airways, Emirates Airline, flydubai and Air Arabia have all pinned their expansion plans on carrying more travellers from the subcontinent to the Gulf, Europe and North America.
“They are growing and we also have new airlines starting,” Saif al Suwaidi, the director general of the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), said during a tour of the new Dh300 million (US$81.6m) air traffic control facility in Abu Dhabi, the Sheikh Zayed Centre.
“We need to find a market for the aircraft they are ordering.”
India was one of eight nations the UAE met at the Conference for Air Service Negotiations in Istanbul last month, a type of speed-dating event for countries to hold preliminary talks with a variety of other countries over a short amount of time.
Over the three-day event, officials also met Turkey, Korea, Norway, France, Fiji, Bangladesh, Zambia, Ethiopia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dominican Republic.
The talks between the UAE and India went well and more concrete negotiations would happen shortly, Mr al Suwaidi said.
“We have been promised there will be more talks soon and we are waiting for that,” he added.
The UAE is one of only a few countries to follow an “Open Skies” policy, or allowing unlimited access by foreign carriers into UAE airspace and airports, which helped drive the development of its aviation sector as more than 130 foreign carriers fly to UAE airports.
11/11/09 Ivan Gale/The National, UAE

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Categories: Foreign Nov 2009