India open to inking its first air service bilateral pact with Qatar: Civil Aviation Ministry

NEW DELHI: India is open to signing its first air service bilateral agreement with Qatar if the Arab nation seeks an increase in existing seat entitlements. The civil aviation ministry communicated this view, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s presence, to a delegation led by Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani. Qatar has the third-largest natural gas reserves in the world and is among the most influential Arab nations.

"Bilaterals with any country should only be increased, if our carrier wants it," said a senior civil aviation ministry official, who did not want to be named.

Indian carriers are, however, not very enthusiastic about increasing seat entitlements. Gulf carriers depend heavily on the Indian market to enlist passengers to feed routes to Europe and North America. "In the case of Qatar, our carriers do not want any increase. We have told them that the requests from Qatar could be looked into in case they put in a request but our carriers do not want any increase," the official said.

Qatar, meanwhile, has also shown interest in buying a stake in IndiGo, India’s largest carrier in terms of passengers flown. Qatar had earlier sought an increase in weekly seat entitlements to 50,000 from 24,292, but without success.

Indian carriers utilise only 10,000 weekly seats whereas Qatar utilises as much as 22,000 weekly seats from India and is therefore keen to raise the limit. Qatar Airways vies aggressively in the Indian subcontinent with Abu Dhabi’s Etihad and Dubai’s Emirates for Indian passengers. Indian aviation industry executives are against any increase in bilaterals between Qatar and India.

"There is no need to increase bilateral entitlements with any country. Any increase in weekly seats is like giving foreign carriers access to the Indian market and it surely goes against our carriers," said an airline official, who did not want to be named. According to government data, domestic carriers Air India, Jet Airways, SpiceJet and IndiGo offer 44% fewer seats than their foreign peers on overseas routes.

Data on foreign bilateral utilisation compiled by the civil aviation ministry shows that the foreign carriers offer 432,456 seats a week to Indian passengers, compared to 242,365 seats offered by Indian carriers.