Airline lobby group FIA opposes move to ease rules for flying overseas


By ET Bureau | 26 Jan, 2015 
The Federation of Indian Airlines is up in arms against the government's efforts to do away with a rule that mandates a carrier to fly local routes for five years and take its fleet size to 20 planes before being considered for international flying. 

The lobby group has also found support from national carrier Air India and former civil aviation minister Praful Patel. 
The new rule is likely to be taken up at a meeting called by the civil aviation ministry on January 28 to discuss the draft aviation policy. 
The government plans to replace the 5/20 rule with a much easier criteria of accumulating "domestic credit points", a goal that can be achieved with just one year of domestic flying and one plane. 
In a letter to the aviation ministry, FIA - which includes IndiGo, Go Air, Jet AirwaysBSE and SpiceJet has alleged that the rule is being changed to favour a new entrant in the domestic airline industry. 
Vistara, Tata Sons' joint venture with Singapore Airlines, which plans to align its domestic network with that of its Singaporean shareholder, is in favour of doing away with the 5/20 rule. 

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