The Ministry of Civil Aviation has issued guidelines for operation of Indian Scheduled Carriers on international routes. The eligibility criteria for the Scheduled Carriers are that they should have continuous operations of at least 5 years in the domestic sector on the date of application and have a minimum fleet size of 20 aircrafts Besides they should also have valid Air Operators Permit (AOP), should be security cleared by Ministry of Home Affairs and have the approval of Aircraft Acquisition Committee.
Excepting Air India and Indian Airlines other Scheduled Carriers will not be allowed to operate to UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for a period of three years.
For the purpose of route allocation due consideration will be given to the operational plans of Air India/Indian Airlines before allocating routes to other eligible Scheduled Carriers. All eligible Scheduled Carriers will be asked to submit their operational plan in the first and the third quarter of each year. At any point of time operational plan of up to 1 year will be considered for route/traffic right allocation. Allocation of traffic rights to Scheduled Carriers will depend on the availability of traffic rights to the particular countries/routes. If the total entitlements fall short of the requirements projected by the eligible airlines, inter-se allocation of entitlements will be in the ratio of ASKM deployed by the Scheduled Carriers on domestic routes over last five years. For this purpose, ASKM deployment of Scheduled Carriers in domestic sector will be determined twice a year - on 1st January and on 1st July of each year. Traffic entitlements decided on the basis of ASKM deployment will be rounded off to the nearest whole number. Traffic rights allocated for a particular schedule, i.e. Summer or Winter schedule of a particular year will have to be utilized by the Scheduled Carrier within the same schedule period. Failure to utilize traffic rights once granted would lead to a ban of two years on that route. Scheduled Carriers will not be permitted to reduce ASKM deployment in domestic sector once rights are allocated on international routes. Entitlements given to Scheduled Carriers will be reviewed in the event any of them reduces domestic operations after obtaining traffic rights on international routes.
Notwithstanding the above guidelines, the Government has decided that it may at its discretion permit or deny allocation of rights keeping in view the preparedness of the airlines, viability of operations and the overall interests of the civil aviation sector.
MC/GK
(Release ID :6730)