Jet, Air Sahara may fly to Colombo by end-Dec

Jet Airways and Air Sahara today said they were ready to fly to Colombo as soon as the bilateral issues were sorted out by the civil aviation ministry.

Briefing mediapersons here today, Civil Aviation Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy said the open sky offers would be reciprocal and could be operational as early as December 25 and latest by January 1.

Senior ministry officials said once the respective countries made their offers, the ministry would allot the unutilised rights of Indian Airlines and Air-India to Jet and Air Sahara.

The Cabinet yesterday approved private airlines' flights to Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries. It also approved the Asean (Association of South-East Asian Nations) and the Sri Lanka open sky offers made by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in October.

Talking to Business Standard, UK Bose, chief executive officer, Air Sahara said, "We are keen to start flights to Nepal and Bangladesh as soon as we are formally notified. We are prepared to fly to Colombo even before December 25." Air Sahara would undertake a fleet augmentation exercise as soon as unused bilaterals are extended to it, he added.

Jet executives said while the airline is prepared to fly to Sri Lanka at the earliest, it had yet to take a call on flights to the Saarc countries. The company was studying the profitability of flying in some of the Saarc routes, they added.

As of now, only Indian Airlines flies to Saarc countries. Ministry sources said while these countries cumulatively utilised about 88 bilaterals a week, the total bilaterals unused were about 53 flights a week.

As part of the Asean open sky offer, special rights to operate intermediate flights have been extended to Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Fifth freedom rights have also been granted to Sri Lankan Airlines allowing it to fly from any destination in India to other Saarc countries.

The offer allows the designated airlines of Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Phillipines, Brunei, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia to operate daily flights out of the four metros and any number of flights from 18 non-metro destinations.

At the press conference, Rudy said Indian Airlines would lose Rs 14 crore due to the commercial agreement arrangement being scrapped between India and Sri Lanka.

He said, Sri Lanka Airlines would be allowed to operate daily flights to six metros: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Besides, it would be allowed unlimited flights to 18 tourist destinations.