It is time to have a clear policy on how the Indian Government wants to work out bilateral agreements on air services. This is the message from the controversy generated over the Jet Airways-Etihad deal.At the heart of the Jet-Etihad controversy is the point that India signed a bilateral agreement on April 24, hours after details of the buy out was made public --- it was after months of negotiations that Jet Airways had finally struck a deal with the Abu Dhabi-based Etihad to sell a 24 per cent stake in the airline for over Rs 2,000 crore.
Etihad is the sole carrier from Abu Dhabi so it will get to operate all the seats from the UAE side while from India the seats will be divided among Jet Airways, Air India, IndiGo and SpiceJet.
Others maintain that India is signing bilateral agreements with all and sundry and that this goes against the interests of Indian carriers. To bolster their argument, they point to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) Web site.
A quick glance at the site shows that India has exchanged close to 1,00,000 seats a week with Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Ras Al Khaimah and Sharjah, all of which are within a few hundred miles from one another. For many, this is akin to every State in India saying that it will have its own bilateral air services agreement with various countries globally.
10/07/13 Ashwini Phadnis/Business Line
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Etihad is the sole carrier from Abu Dhabi so it will get to operate all the seats from the UAE side while from India the seats will be divided among Jet Airways, Air India, IndiGo and SpiceJet.
Others maintain that India is signing bilateral agreements with all and sundry and that this goes against the interests of Indian carriers. To bolster their argument, they point to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) Web site.
A quick glance at the site shows that India has exchanged close to 1,00,000 seats a week with Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Ras Al Khaimah and Sharjah, all of which are within a few hundred miles from one another. For many, this is akin to every State in India saying that it will have its own bilateral air services agreement with various countries globally.
10/07/13 Ashwini Phadnis/Business Line
