Govt to hold fresh talks with airlines on flying-abroad rules

A meeting at the Prime Minister's Office failed to resolve the deadlock on amending the 5/20 norms, which govern overseas flying rights of airlines.

The civil aviation ministry might hold consultations again with all stakeholders, including airlines. On Tuesday, top civil aviation ministry officials briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Cabinet colleagues on a proposed civil aviation policy. The controversial 5/20 rule was also discussed but no consensus reached on its amendment, sources said.

According to sources, Modi told officials that wider consultations should be held before taking a final decision on the 5/20 rule. Sources said the Union government has also decided to form a group of secretaries to deal with key issues related to the civil aviation policy including those related to tax relation. Some of the members would include secretaries from the civil aviation ministry, home ministry, finance ministry and defence ministry, sources added. The Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA), the body representing incumbent airlines, had shot a letter to Modi on August 25 demanding the mandatory requirement of five aircraft and 20 airlines to fly abroad remain. It had said that "removal of these rules will vitiate the level playing field". They had said the proposed rules were "in favour of foreign airline-controlled new entrants who have shown, at best, peripheral interest in serving the Indian domestic market."

A civil aviation ministry official said: "But we have received representations from new airlines to also scrap the present rule. So a consensus will have to be built. All options are open as of now."

Sources said the meeting of the civil aviation ministry officials with Modi went on for three hours on Tuesday evening. Among those present at the meeting were Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

At present, apart from Vistara, AirAsia and GoAir, all the other airlines fly on international routes.

Earlier, the government had planned to replace the 5/20 rule with a credit-based system, linking it with route dispersal guidelines. A re-draft of the civil aviation policy was underway and ministry officials said the policy would be put in public domain only by the second week of September.