The Hindu : National : A blessing for both private and public sector carriers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 09, 2005

National

National

A blessing for both private and public sector carriers

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 8 . The Civil Aviation Ministry has decided to allow Jet Airways and Air Sahara to fly to South-East Asian countries, offering more choices to the travellers and fuelling hopes of a fare reduction.At the same time, the public sector carriers, Air India and Indian Airlines, have got what they had asked for: substantial increase in their weekly seat capacity to the destinations.

Jet Airways and Air Sahara have been allowed to operate one flight each every week on the Chennai-Kuala Lumpur sector. While Jet Airways has been allocated one flight a week on the Singapore-Mumbai sector, Air Sahara has been given the Delhi-Singapore sector for operating a weekly service. The new flights are expected to be launched from April when the summer schedule comes into force.

Official sources said that the summer schedule was finalised yesterday at a meeting presided over by the Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Praful Patel, on the basis of existing bilaterals, which India has with Malaysia and Singapore.

As the State-owned carriers were granted what they had sought, all the routes to Thailand were exhausted and nothing was left for the two private carriers, official sources said. Distribution of additional entitlements for Hong Kong could not be taken up as the authorities there were reportedly not keen to increase their bilateral rights with India.

Additional quota

Air India was granted an additional quota of 603 weekly seats to Singapore, taking the total to 3,618 and Indian Airlines was given an additional 435 weekly seats, taking its Singapore quota to 5,195 seats. On their connection to Kuala Lumpur, AI got the nod for 1,206 additional seats, taking its weekly tally to 2,613 seats and IA got approval for 2,030 additional seats, taking the total seats per week to 3,045. While AI got approval for 1,608 extra seats per week to Bangkok, IA bagged 2,465 extra seats to Bangkok. It takes the total of AI seats per week to Bangkok to 2,596 and those of IA to 5,365.

Officials said the summer schedule was finalised as part of the Ministry's "interim decision," which could come up for review any time. Sources said that Air India had not asked for any flight to Australia, which it had planned to launch soon.

The two private carriers have also been given permission to fly to the U.K. and Jet has been allowed to fly daily to London while Sahara has got two flights a week to London.

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