Private airlines? No problem for A-I, IA

There would be 'no adverse impact' on Air-India and Indian Airlines if private carriers are allowed to operate to foreign destinations as the public sector carriers were together operating only 28 per cent of capacity on foreign routes, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said on Thursday.

"The operations of private airlines to South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries are against unutilised entitlements of the Indian side. No adverse impact on IA and A-I, therefore, is envisaged because of this decision," Patel said during Question Hour in Lok Sabha.

Pointing out that an overwhelming 72 per cent of unutilised entitlements were cornered by foreign airlines, he said with growing foreign passenger traffic demand due to opening up of the economy and foreign tourist flow, "we will have to increase air connectivity and look at the larger Indian canvass."

He was replying to a question by his predecessor and Bharatiya Janata Party MP Ananth Kumar as to how private carriers' foreign operations would affect IA and A-I and another by Mohd Salim (CPI-M) as to why IA and A-I were not strengthened first and then the private carriers allowed.

Patel, however, said: "No final decision has been taken" to allow private carriers from operating to other countries beyond SAARC.

Jet Airways and Air Sahara have been designated for operations to Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh as against the unutilised entitlements of the Indian side, he said.