In a rare first, the Indian flag carrier and some private airlines show solidarity, as India has rejected China’s request to allow Air China to fly more flights on the Sino-Indian route.
After receiving the request from Beijing, the Narendra Modi government in New Delhi held a meeting with top officials of Air India, IndiGo, Jet Airways, SpiceJet and GoAir to discuss the issue. During the meeting, senior officials of Air India and the private airlines said that Air China’s move would jeopardise their own expansion plans. Sources said that the meeting took place after Prime Minister Modi’s visit to China in June.

Talking to the local media earlier this week, a senior official of the Indian Aviation Ministry said: “There was a proposal to increase flying rights between the two countries, but Indian carriers opposed it on the grounds that they have plans to launch flights to China and the government should not agree on allowing more flights to Chinese airlines, as it would jeopardise their plans.” He further said that the Indian government had no plan to increase any bilateral traffic rights.
Currently, the Indian and Chinese carriers are allowed to fly 42 flights a week. While the Chinese airlines use nearly 93% of the quota, the Indian carriers use only 12%. Recently, some Indian private carriers, like SpiceJet, IndiGo and Vistara, have decided to launch international operations. GoAir has informed the Modi government that it wants to launch flight services between New Delhi and Beijing.

Meanwhile, analysts have appreciated the Indian carriers’ decision to expand the India-China route, as they believe that the proposed move will certainly increase revenue and earnings. Sharat Dhall, the Chief Operating Officer of India’s second largest online travel portal – Yatra.com, insisted: “This market offers immense potential since it would connect the largest and the second largest populated countries of the world. This is also good from the perspective of Indian travellers, as addition of flights by Indian carriers will expand the options to China from India.”

It is to be noted that India has always accepted requests made by its carriers and rejected similar demand from other countries. In the past, India rejected Qatar’s request in this regard even after receiving a ‘green signal’ from the Prime Minister’s Office. The local carriers informed the government that they were unable to exhaust their quota of rights.
As per the current rules, the government can give additional rights to foreign airlines only if the Indian carriers use about 80% of the existing rights.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das