ASEAN countries increase daily flights to Indian cities

For outbound, the Indian Government has granted permission to private domestic carriers to fly to Singapore and Malaysia from the second quarter this year. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said: "Special facilities have been offered to the ASEAN countries in keeping with their economic and strategic interests. Under this initiative, airlines of each of the ten ASEAN countries have been allowed to operate daily services to New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata subject to equal reciprocal rights granted to the Indian side and on the existing terms of the commercial agreement with our national carriers. "They have also been allowed unlimited access to 18 other tourist gateways in India on a reciprocal basis." Patel added: "In the case of Sri Lanka, in addition to the terms of the offer to ASEAN countries, a daily flight was also offered to Bangalore and Hyderabad on a reciprocal basis." In order to use its entitlements and provide better connectivity on international routes, the Government recently allowed private scheduled carriers of India with at least five years of operations in domestic sector have been permitted to operate to all overseas destinations except the Gulf countries. For the first time, flying out of the SAARC region, Jet Airways and Air Sahara are likely to be allowed to operate a daily service on the Chennai-Kuala Lumpur sector from end of March or April onwards. Both the airlines are also likely to be allowed to operate a daily flight between India and Singapore, with Air Sahara operating on the Delhi-Singapore and Jet flying from Mumbai. However, neither airline has rights for Thailand. For summer 2005, State-run carriers Air India and Indian Airlines have got increment for serving Malaysia and Singapore. The allocation of entitlements among the eligible airlines, Jet Airways and Air Sahara, will be in the ratio of available seats per kilometre deployed by them on domestic routes over the last five years. The government had earlier announced that entitlements for operations on the India-Australia sector will also be enhanced for both sides significantly. Australian carriers will also get access to Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad as additional points over this period.