Jet Airways, Air India try to emerge as West-Saarc bridge

NEW DELHI: The absence of strong airlines in neighbouring countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka has led to Indian airlines trying to do an Emirates - by bringing traffic from these countries to their hubs in Delhi or Mumbai and then sending them to the West and vice versa - something called sixth freedom in aviation parlance. According to Jet Airways, 17% of its 60-lakh annual international travellers last year were people flying between Gulf (and Europe to some extent) and India and then taking connecting flights to and from places like Kathmandu, Dhaka.

Air India (international) says 1 lakh of its 30 lakh international travellers annually came from this segment and the airline has set a target of 1.25 lakh for this year. "The original target was 1.5 lakh but had to be scaled back due to reduction of flights because of almost two-month-long pilots' strike," said an official. Foreign airlines have historically carried almost 66%-80% of all international traffic in and out of India, thanks to a mix of sixth freedom use by mega airlines from Gulf, southeast Asia and Europe and direct point-to-point services offered by them.

Jet and AI are trying to emerge as a serious option to people flying between the West and Saarc. Kingfisher does not fly abroad. Budget carriers SpiceJet and IndiGo are also eying a pie of sixth freedom traffic.


"International traffic in and out of India is growing at 15% a year. Two-third of this traffic is carried by foreign airlines. Apart from focusing on direct traffic, our target is sixth freedom. This means people travelling between London and Bangkok, Kathmandu or Dhaka or Gulf and Saarc. We are the number one indirect carrier between London and Bangkok," said a senior Jet official. Jet has reconstructed its network by having flights from eight points in Gulf land in Mumbai between 3 am and 5 am and then having flights to Bangkok, Kathmandu and Dhaka at 8 am.

A senior AI official said they touched the figure of 1 lakh sixth freedom flyers after Delhi became its hub over two years ago. Before that, this number was as low as 30,000 out of its total 30 lakh annual international flyers! "For the first time, 40 to 50 passengers on every flight to and from the West has people flying to or from the other end of spectrum we offer in our network," said official.