Any news on Jet's (9W) getting permission to fly to USA ? - Airliners-India

vmgopal · Member

RE: Any news on Jet's (9W) getting permission to fly to USA ?

ArtofZen · Member

While browsing Wikipedia, I found the following:

Another issue that was "problematic" in the eyes of the US aviation authorities and contributed to delaying Jet Airways being granted a foreign carrier permit to enable it to commence commercial airline operations in the US is the controversy surrounding Naresh Goyal's actual citizenship. There have been recurring reports in the Indian media that he is an Indian-born, naturalised German citizen who is permanently resident in the UK. Although India's citzenship law barring dual citizenship for Indian passport holders has recently been amended permitting Indian citizens to take up another country's citizenship - bar Pakistan and Bangladesh (for obvious national security reasons) - without forfeiting their Indian citizenship as long as that country permits dual citizenship, this does not apply to Germany as it does not allow dual citizenship (unlike the UK, US, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands for instance, which do allow dual citizenship).

If these media reports turn out to be true and Jet Airways is effectively controlled by Naresh Goyal through his majority ownership of Tailwinds, the US authorities mulling over the company's application to begin commercial operations in the US may construe this as a violation of the recently concluded "open skies" bilateral air services agreement between India and the US as well as international aviation law, which state that an airline must be substantially owned and controlled by citizens of the country where it is based in order to qualify as a "flag carrier" representing that country. This means that if Jet Airways were effectively controlled by a German rather than an Indian citizen, its traffic rights between India and the US and possibly other countries as well might need to be renegotiated under the German-US "open skies" bilateral aviation accord. In addition, the US and other countries could ask the Indian Government for further concessions for their own designated flag carriers providing scheduled air services to/from India if Jet Airways wanted to protect its international traffic rights from/to India. This, in turn, could lead the company's Indian-based competitors to complain to the Indian authorities that Jet Airways was not a "genuine" Indian flag carrier and might potentially result in competitors applying for the revocation of Jet Airways' operating permit and traffic rights (in India and abroad).

I was wondering if there's any truth in this rumour/news. I know Wikipedia can be edittd by just about anybody and its inherent flaws. This just grabbed my attention.