The how and what of air traffic rights

The historical equity deal between Jet Airways and Abu Dhabi-based airline Etihad largely depended on the much talked-about bilateral traffic rights, which India and UAE revised on the day of the deal. But...


WHAT ARE BILATERAL TRAFFIC RIGHTS?

A bilateral air service agreement (ASA) or air transport agreement (ATA) is one whereby two nations allow their respective airlines to launch flights into each other's territory. Bilateral rights are national assets and are agreed upon between two countries not for the sake of enhancing transport alone but also to further and deepen diplomatic ties. The government and industry gets to negotiate the bilateral traffic rights.

HOW DOES ASA WORK?

1) The two contracting countries fix equal number of seats or air capacity that they can fly into each other's territory.

Example: India and Abu Dhabi have 49,970 seats per week available on each side to transport people and cargo to and from each other's territory

2) Another way is to fix the number of flights (frequency) per week and the kind of aircraft that can be flown.

3) ‘Points of call' : These are the fixed number of cities that each country allows the other's airlines to fly into.

Example: India has fixed Abu Dhabi's access to only nine cities in the country

4) The contracting countries then distribute the available rights among their respective airlines

Example: Jet Airways has expressed the need to fly 40,000 seats into Abu Dhabi over the next 3 years as per its expansion plans. IndiGo & SpiceJet think they need about 5,000, while Air India wants only 2,500 seats a week.

5) A country can make a request to revise the limits of air capacity with another nation

Example: After Etihad used up 8,500 of 13,300 available seats per week, Abu Dhabi requested India to revise ASA and increase air capacity by another 36,670 seats per week. Jet Airways made a similar request to the Indian government.