Open skies policy soon: Shahnawaz

NEW DELHI: If you are frequent flier who often faces difficulties in getting a seat on a overseas flight out of India, now is the time to pop the champagne.
The Indian government is thinking of moving towards a ‘open skies’ regime that allows foreign carriers to launch any number of flights without having to bargain for reciprocal benefits and code-sharing arran-gements with national carriers Air-India and Indian Airlines.
This would mean that airlines can increase capacity deployment when demand peaks and curtail it during the lean season.
We will move towards a open skies policy if other countries are also willing to reciprocate, civil aviation minister Shahnawaz Hussain said today. While India was willing to open up, countries like the UK should provide facilities for Air-India to expand, Hussain said.
While both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are keen to expand in India, efforts are not being made to provide additional landing slots for Air-India at Heathrow. Prime minister A B Vajpayee has written a letter to his counterpart Tony Blair in this regard, he added. Air-India would launch services to Frankfurt and add capacity on the UK-US sectors within two months.
The government is following a liberal policy towards new bilateral agreements which help in enhancing capacity, Hussain said while speaking at a national convention on aviation and tourism, organised by Assocham. The civil aviation minister also pointed out that the current demand-supply gap was due to the impact of September 11 rather than government restrictions.
“We are not preventing airlines from coming in. Most of them have pulled out due to their own reasons,� he added. United Airlines, operating 4,000 seats a week through daily services, is keeping off India after September 11 and similar is the case with Sabena (750 seats per week), Swissair (350 seats), Japan Airlines (450) and Qantas (250 seats), Mr Hussain added. The decline in capacity declined was to the tune of 5,000 seats.
The civil aviation minister said the gap is now being filled up with new entrants while some of those who pulled out are also likely to return. Chinese, Taiwanese and Iranian airlines have been allowed to launch services while others like Emirates and SriLankan have been allowed to expand.