Question : DISCONTINUATION OF FLIGHTS

Minister of CIVIL AVIATION (Shri Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati)

(a): Following domestic / international links have been withdrawn by Air India from the year 2012 as route rationalization / route restructuring exercise.

 Domestic 
 # Chennai-Vizag-Bhubaneswar-Chennai in 2012; # Kolkata-Bhubaneswar and vv in 2013; # Delhi-Gwalior-Mumbai & vv in 2013; # Chennai-Pune and vv in 2014; 
 International 
 # Amritsar-Delhi-Toronto and vv in 2012; # Amritsar-Sharjah-Amritsar & Lucknow-Sharjah-Lucknow in 2013; 
 Rationalization of the following routes of Air India Express has been done in the last 3 years. 
 # Flights to Dammam from Hyderabad, Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram withdrawn in 2012 # Flight on Delhi-Dhaka-Delhi route withdrawn in February, 2015. 

(b): Air India has withdrawn/restructured flights on the basis of continuous monitoring and analysis of the route economics and after examining the strategic importance of such services to its network. The revenue contribution of feeder traffic is also taken into consideration.

(c) and (d): Government has laid down Route Dispersal Guidelines (RDG) with a view to achieving better regulation of air transport services taking into account the need of different regions of the country. The domestic air services in the country have been deregulated. It is up to the airlines to provide air services to specific places depending upon the traffic demand and commercial viability. The Scheduled domestic airlines are free to operate anywhere within the country subject to compliance of RDG.

Also Indian carriers are eligible to operate to foreign destinations as per the respective bilateral air services agreements with concerned foreign countries. However, actual operations by any airline is always guided by its commercial judgement depending upon the traffic demand and economic viability of operations.

The earnings of any airlines from any route is commercially confidential information.