India’s Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday told the news agency in an interview that India is not looking at increasing air traffic rights for United Arab Emirates.
United Arab Emirates has requested India to increase number of seats between the both countries to about 65,000 a week from 50,000 a week. In a response Scindia said that at this point, they (India) is not looking at increasing it.
The minister said he wants Indian carriers to order more wide body planes and offer non-stop flights to international destinations, adding India is mobilising to handle the transportation needs of its population of 1.3 billion by building more airports in the Country’s different parts while expanding capacity of the current major city airports like Delhi and Mumbai.
The minister also said that India is going to see an explosion of air traffic in years to come, cited growing economy, rapid urbanization, growth in income of the people as main reasons powering this statement.
India is one of the countries in the world where aviation market is growing at faster pace due to rise in demand of the air travel while supply of the planes is limited. Majority of India’s International traffic is carried by the Gulf carriers like Emirates, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways through efficient hubs like Dubai, Abu Dhabi.
According to Centre for Aviation (CAPA) in 2015, India had the highest seat sharing in Emirates and Etihad Airways, second highest in Qatar Airways and.
The Indian government is pushing airlines to order more planes to recapture the traffic lost to foreign airlines and to meet supply demands.
Earlier in February last month, Air India placed an order of 470 passenger jets (Boeing and Airbus) to tap the rising demand for affordable air travel as nation’s middle class consumers ranks grow. Later in February, while speaking to news agency ANI about the update, IndiGo’s head of International Sales Vinay Malhotra said that they (IndiGo) have ordered 500 more aircraft for the expansion plan. They have also announced a new partnership as part of their expansion plans with Turkish Airlines.
While talking to a news channel on 1st March, the CEO of Akasa Air, Vinay Dube told that they will be placing a much larger aircraft order by the end of the year; the order will be in three digits. He added that the order is not about Akasa Air but about India’s future story also.
On 10th March, a news outlet reported that Adani Airports in India have recorded an astounding increase in passenger traffic & this upward trend is likely to continue.
With the inputs from various news agencies.
