New Delhi: New airlines will find it easier to start long-haul international operations and will have to wait for a longer period before launching flights to nearby countries. The aviation ministry is proposing that startup airlines be allowed to start flights of over six-hour duration - including Europe, North America and Australia - once they set up a certain minimum domestic network.
Flights of under six-hour-duration - including Gulf, Southeast Asia and Saarc regions - will be allowed when startups double their domestic network over the minimum coverage. For a big startup like Vistara (a JV between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines), it could mean over a year of flying within the country to start US, Europe operations and over two years of domestic flying before mounting flights to nearby regions. Relatively smaller ones like Tata-AirAsia could take longer.
The aviation ministry communicated this to airlines on Wednesday at a meeting called to discuss the proposed changes to Route Dispersal Guidelines (RDG or norms for flying within the country on metro and remote routes), which will now be linked to overseas operations of all carriers.
19/03/15 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
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Flights of under six-hour-duration - including Gulf, Southeast Asia and Saarc regions - will be allowed when startups double their domestic network over the minimum coverage. For a big startup like Vistara (a JV between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines), it could mean over a year of flying within the country to start US, Europe operations and over two years of domestic flying before mounting flights to nearby regions. Relatively smaller ones like Tata-AirAsia could take longer.
The aviation ministry communicated this to airlines on Wednesday at a meeting called to discuss the proposed changes to Route Dispersal Guidelines (RDG or norms for flying within the country on metro and remote routes), which will now be linked to overseas operations of all carriers.
19/03/15 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
