India to up Qatar's airline seats quota under bilateral traffic rights

New Delhi:  India is set to increase Qatar's entitlement of airline seats under their bilateral traffic rights, a move that could help the Gulf nation develop Doha as a major regional hub for westbound traffic from India.
"Qatar would be the next country with whom we will revise the bilateral air service agreement," a senior official of the civil aviation ministry told ET. "We are just negotiating the final number for the enhancement in weekly seats, and it should be done soon." The official did not give a timeline for the pact.
Qatar has sought to enhance its weekly quota of seats under the pact to 72,600 from the current 24,800, which was nearly exhausted. Its national airline, Qatar Airways, is the fifth largest carrier of India's international traffic, with nearly 4% share of the 45 million passengers travelling to and from India in 2012-13, according to data from Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation.
"The demand for increase in seats with Qatar has mainly been from their side, as Qatar Airways has nearly exhausted its current entitlement, while Indian carriers only use around 10,000 weekly seats, so we will have to see what kind of an increase is actually required," the official said.
Read News In Full 29/11/13 Debabrata Das/Economic Times