India, US to expand cooperation in civil aviation

India and the US will sign a memorandum of understanding Monday to expand bilateral cooperation in civil aviation that will build on the existing open skies pact between the two countries.

According to officials in the Ministry of Civil Aviation here, the MoU is a part of the US-India Aviation Cooperation Programme (ACP) that would help the aviation sector in both the countries to come closer on the issues of technical assistance, job training and personnel exchange programmes. 'The MoU between the two countries would help to execute the initiatives related to open routes, capacity, frequencies, designations, pricing, marketing arrangements and code sharing,' a senior official in the ministry said.The initiatives on these issues have come forth after the historic civil aviation pact signed between India and US in April this year under the open skies policy of the Indian government.

'The high priority given to the Indian civil aviation sector by the US authorities is quite evident. Before India, the US had such ties in the aviation sector only with China,' the official said. US government organisations participating in the ACP with India include the US Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the US Export-Import Bank and the Foreign and Commercial Service of the US Department of Commerce and the US Trade and Development Agency.The US had made it clear while initiating the aviation co-operation programme between two countries that it is keen to integrate current US public and private investments in India's aviation sector.

The programme aims at providing assistance by the US civil aviation bodies to India for modernising airports, improveing aviation infrastructure besides training personnel. Under the programme, US government and the US aviation industry has already started working closely with New Delhi to identify opportunities to support the aviation sector in India, an official in the Ministry of Civil Aviation said.

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