Air travel: Foreign airlines demand more access to Indian market
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New Delhi: After Air India started its course of transforming itself into a global airline under Tata, making the world's largest ever plane order of 470 jets, foreign airlines have surfaced demanding more access to the Indian air travel sector, Reuters reported.
In an aviation conference on Tuesday, multiple foreign airline companies demanded ease on the cap on the number of flights deployed on many routes to and from India. This demand comes after India's flag carrier was sold to Tata.
The limits that are currently there between India and many markets were imposed at the beginning of the past decade when Air India was incurring heavy losses. But Air India, coming under a private entity and it placing a massive order for fresh crafts, has once again given rise to the debate over market access.
Those who demanded more access to Indian markets include Dubai's Emirates, Turkish Airlines and Kuwait's Jazeera Airways. Vietnam and Indonesia also had called for more flights to and from India, officials informed.
When Turkish Airlines Chief Executive Bilal Eksi said that they were not getting enough share from the Indian market, Dubai requested 50,000 more seats a week on Indian routes.
However Indian civil aviation minister told Reuters that the Centre is not going to ease the cap on foreign airlines' share but urged Indian airlines to order more big jets to meet demand without forcing passengers to change planes.
Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that our carriers must look at the international markets with great focus. Centre is pushing airlines to do so, and the process has already started.
However, Emirates President Tim Clark welcomed the launches but said that there is enough in the pie for everyone without traffic curbs.
He said that there is great demand that none would be able to deal with if unconstrained growth is allowed.
According to analysts, the Indian government has no hurry to relax the curbs as it is aiming to recapture the traffic lost to foreign carriers. This is part of a larger initiative to create an economic powerhouse, Reuters reported.