Foreign carriers can fly in with higher capacity

Making a deviation from its earlier position, the government has decided to allow international carriers to operate flights with higher capacity to India during the first two months of the peak season.

However, during this period, the carriers will not be allowed to increase the number of services they operate to India. The government had initially considered a policy which did not allow foreign airlines to increase the number of seats to India.

Last year, government policy allowed international carriers to mount as many flights as they wanted to any Indian airport during the peak season (from mid November), with prior permission.

Now, allotment of the number of seats carriers can fly to India will be based on the bilateral agreements the carriers have utilised. "In the first two months of the peak season, the carriers will be allowed to increase the number of seats to India by flying larger aircraft. This will take care of the existing demand for seats," said a civil aviation ministry official.

In the second phase which begins in January, the foreign carriers may be allowed to operate more flights to their existing centres of operation.

This means that an airline operating flights to a city like Bangalore may be given permission to operate more flights to that city. Operating flights to new centres may not be allowed.

Carriers like Emirates Air had taken advantage of last year's liberal regime and sought permission to start as many as 600 flights to the country during last year's peak season.

The open-sky policy during 2004-05 resulted in international airlines adding more than 2,75,000 additional seats on their flights into and out of India.

Now, under the non-open sky policy time-frame, carriers will have to follow the conditions laid out in the bilateral air services agreement India enters with each country.

Bilateral agreements specify the number of flights carriers from each country can operate to India, as well as the cities they can fly to.