New Delhi: The government is taking a fresh look at India's air traffic rights with Austria and Switzerland, four years after their national carriers were acquired by Lufthansa, possibly to coax the German airline into inducting Air India into a powerful global airline alliance.
The civil aviation ministry has approached its external affairs counterpart to check whether the effective control of Swiss and Austrian Airlines lie with their own nationals, said two senior aviation ministry officials, asking not to be named. "We are waiting for their opinion before we review the bilaterals (with Austria and Switzerland)," said the first official.
India has separate air traffic arrangements, known as Air Service Agreements or 'bilaterals' in aviation parlance, with Switzerland, Austria and Germany, among other nations. Lufthansa bought majority stakes in Austrian and Swiss in 2005 and 2008 and automatically won the flying rights allotted to these carriers.
09/08/13 Binoy Prabhakar/Economic Times
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The civil aviation ministry has approached its external affairs counterpart to check whether the effective control of Swiss and Austrian Airlines lie with their own nationals, said two senior aviation ministry officials, asking not to be named. "We are waiting for their opinion before we review the bilaterals (with Austria and Switzerland)," said the first official.
India has separate air traffic arrangements, known as Air Service Agreements or 'bilaterals' in aviation parlance, with Switzerland, Austria and Germany, among other nations. Lufthansa bought majority stakes in Austrian and Swiss in 2005 and 2008 and automatically won the flying rights allotted to these carriers.
09/08/13 Binoy Prabhakar/Economic Times
