Civil Aviation Ministry protects Air India, domestic carriers’ turf

New Delhi: The ministry of civil aviation believes in protecting the turf of Air India and other domestic carriers.
No wonder then that it has agreed to release just about 1,500 additional seat entitlements per week to Malaysian carriers against a demand of about 20,000 additional seats during the recently held bilateral seat entitlement talks.
Sources point out that the Malaysian government was seeking to almost double the present seat entitlement for its carriers but its low-cost airline, Air Asia, would benefit the most from this.
The airline would increase frequencies to existing cities and get a toehold in more Indian cities if more seat entitlements were given, hurting the prospects of Indian carriers such as Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher which run services to Kuala Lumpur, they said.
At present, the Air Services Agreement (ASA) between India and Malaysia allows airlines from each country to offer up to 20,000 seats per week either way. In case Malaysia’s demands had been met, almost 40,000 seats would have been on offer every week to between the two countries.
Our airlines are not using even 4,000 seats per week......why should we enable Air Asia to increase flights into India and further eat into the market share of Indian carriers on this sector? Besides, the Malaysian Government is hesitant in even renewing the ASA. We have made it clear that only 1,500-1,600 additional seats would be allowed and that too when another ASA is signed,” sources said.
03/09/10 Sindhu Bhattacharya/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Foreign Sep 2010, NACIL Sep 2010