Govt. to review norms allowing domestic carriers to fly abroad

The Government is likely to review the prevailing norms to allow domestic carriers to fly abroad in the next fiscal, after the proposed merger of Air India and Indian is complete.

The current guidelines are that an airline has to put in five years of domestic service and should have a fleet of at least 20 aircraft. Official sources said, the review would be holistic and would take into account the number of international sectors available, the number of flights already being mounted by designated Indian carriers, the fleet position of various airlines who want to fly abroad and other issues. The review would be carried out only after the completion of the proposed merger of the two state-owned airlines by the end of the current financial year, the sources said. The review would also include the Gulf sector, which is now being serviced from India only by Air India and the Indian as per the Government policy of allowing them to generate revenue from the money-earning routes. As per the guidelines laid down by the Union Cabinet in December 2004, private Indian carriers are not allowed on the Gulf sector till the completion of three years in early 2008. The destinations include Dubai, Qatar, Iran, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

"We will have to look at the market dynamics and also consider the sustaining power of the new airlines, which could be designated to operate abroad, before we decide to approach the Union Cabinet to change the existing guidelines", the sources said. The officials, however, made it clear that new domestic airlines could not be allowed to simply start up a carrier and launch international flights. "We would have a calibrated approach that would balance the interests of domestic fliers as well as ensure that all foreign traffic out of India are not carried by international carriers", the sources said. Currently, Jet Airways and Air Sahara are the private carriers designated to operate on international sectors barring the Gulf region. While the former operates to the UK, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and Kathmandu, the latter flies to Nepal and Singapore. There has been a persistent demand by some domestic private carriers, particularly Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher, that the guidelines should be changed and they be allowed to fly abroad.

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