Dubai, Sept 19: India will be holding talks with the UAE and Oman on allowing new routes for Gulf carriers into the country.
Ajay Prasad, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, said on the sidelines of an aviation conference here that he would be holding talks with Oman in October and with the UAE this winter over new routes to the Indian market.
He also said that negotiations between India and Qatar last month resulted in new concessions.
Promising the same concessions during the upcoming talks, he said "each of these talks will result in more rights".
"Half a dozen Indian cities are being opened up to foreign competition," he added.
Mind boggling stupidity on the part of the Govt of India and the MoCA. While DN, IT, 9W etc are kept waiting for an indefinite period, any tom-dick-harry from the gulf can fly to India, and now the doors are being opened even wider!!!!
I'm all for opening up the sector to maximize the connectivity, but not at the cost of the Indian carriers who are constrained from flying these routes.
Opening up of Indian skies is good for the customer but why the hell should these LCCs from the Gulf benefit. It's high time the GOI opens the India-Gulf sector to 9W, S2, IT, SG etc.
Is the GOI under pressure from the Arab states to open up?
himmat01 wrote: Is the GOI under pressure from the Arab states to open up?
Not only that. AI and IC are the monopolies in these sector. Especially from Kerala. They get good income from Gulf sector. Load factor is pretty good in Kerala-Gulf sector. So GOI extended their rights for another few years ( I dont know exactly for how long )
Here are some numbers for the Indo-Gulf traffic and seat dist by airline. The interesting fact here to note is the numbers for SHJ, it is as though the O&D traffic to UAE is mainly using SHJ whereas DXB seems to attract more of the onward connecting pax. On second thoughts the desi airlines haven't done badly, if they allow more of the pvt players on this route it can really stimulate the market. MAA has been hugely underserved by the desi carriers, AI is totally abscent here, IA does 1015/wk to SHJ and 1305/wk to MCT.
DXB could do with some competition from 9W and IT.
DXB AI EK CX TG BIMAN TOTAL
TOTAL 8828 18912 1540 1252 507 31039
AUH AI EY SY
TOTAL 1266 1800 780 3846
SHJ IA AA SY
TOTAL 15151 3402 780 19333
MCT AI IA GF OA
TOTAL 1266 3770 7318 5794 18148
BAH AI IA GF OA
TOTAL 2532 2030 5886 10448
DOH AI QR
TOTAL 3798 5800 9598
-- Edited by tayara mechanici at 01:13, 2006-09-20
-- Edited by tayara mechanici at 03:00, 2006-09-20
-- Edited by tayara mechanici at 14:51, 2006-09-20
-- Edited by tayara mechanici at 18:20, 2006-09-20