New Delhi: India's grant of additional flying rights to Abu Dhabi has led to similar demands from other countries. Turkish Airlines, the national carrier of Turkey, has sought a five-fold increase in its current flying rights of about 4,000 seats a week to over 20,000, along with a nod to fly to more Indian cities.
"We currently fly 14 flights a week — a daily from Delhi and Mumbai each to Istanbul. This is very limited capacity. We have asked the government for more destinations as we want to fly to all the six metros, Amritsar and Ahmedabad. We want to have 70 weekly flights from eight cities in India," Turkish Airlines' GM Adnan Aykac told TOI on Wednesday.
Turkey plans to build Europe's largest airport in Istanbul. And, like Gulf carriers, it is looking to get substantial share of its traffic from India. According to Air India, international traffic to and from India will grow at almost 10% for the next decade.
While declining to comment on India's grant of extra flying rights to Abu Dhabi, Aykac called for review of the existing bilateral with Turkey. Bilaterals grant rights to airlines of both countries to mount flights.
11/07/13 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment