Mumbai: Air India has been growing its operations abroad and plans to launch services to Moscow (Russia), Milan and Rome (both Italy) but it will face a big challenge in the US, with India’s grant of additional traffic rights to Dubai (the United Arab Emirates), the opening up of a US immigration pre-clearance facility in Abu Dhabi (UAE) and the US’ Federal Aviation Administration’s downgrade of the Indian civil aviation regulator, which restricts launch of new flights to that country.
Air India earns about 18-20 per cent of its revenue from the US. It has been flying to New York since 1960 and now flies there daily, along with Newark and Chicago. In fact, its New York and Chicago flights are generating a cash surplus.
At an inter-ministerial group meeting to finalise India’s position on traffic rights, Air India opposed the move to enhance the seat quota for Dubai. Air India argued that Dubai’s Emirates Airlines be allowed to fly Airbus A380 without changing seat entitlements. Disregarding the opposition, the ministry raised the entitlements by 11,000 seats a week over the current 54,000 seats.
Read news in full 01/03/14 Aneesh Phadnis/Business Standard
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