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The Times of India
The Times of India
Business
TNN

Dubai asks for more seats on India air routes

NEW DELHI: Dubai — the biggest destination for both transit and point-to-point Indian travellers — has sought flying rights for an additional 50,000 weekly seats to and from India. It has also sought permission for its airlines to fly direct to additional points of call — Amritsar, Tiruchirapalli, Coimbatore, Kannur, Goa, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati and Pune — that are very lucrative revenue generators for this sector. Since 2014, India-Dubai bilaterals stand at 65,200 seats per week to be utilised by designated carriers of either sides.

The Modi administration has not been liberal in increasing the existing flying rights of foreign countries that can be utilised by their carriers as well as by Indian ones on a reciprocal basis, in a bid to increase Indian carriers’ share in the country’s booming international travel. Several countries, including UAE (while Dubai part of UAE, it is considered separately for flying rights) have for the past few years been seeking enhanced bilaterals with India.

The reason: While their designated airlines will quickly mount the additional capacity, India wants a calibrated increase where its airlines are able make use of the same by being able to deploy more flights. Dubai’s mega airline Emirates and its low cost arm flyDubai have the fleet and financial muscle to ramp up capacity as soon as allowed. Indian carriers, on the other hand, can catch up gradually depending on factors like existing ones increasing their fleet size and new ones like Akasa becoming eligible to fly abroad when they get 20 planes in the fleet.

With the post-Covid increase in travel, Dubai Civil Aviation Authority DG Mohammed A Ahli has written to aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, saying: “…the Dubai-India air transport sector continues to be the cornerstone of all such businesses as well as in bringing together the people and exchange of ideas between our two nations….. agreement between our two states to update the entitlements of the respective designated airlines is of vital importance.”

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