Government Mulling Strategy to Boost Performance of Airlines: Civil Aviation Minister

Concerned over "unsatisfactory performance" of Indian airlines in taking on foreign competition, the government is considering a new strategy to motivate them to perform and take away overseas flying rights of those who fail to do so.

"We have to work out a strategy that will motivate our players to perform. The reality is that Indian players are not able to perform - neither the public nor the private sector (airlines)," Civil Aviation Minister P Ashok Gajapathi Raju told PTI here.

He was replying to questions on the performance of Indian carriers vis-a-vis the bilateral air traffic rights granted to them and foreign carriers to fly to each other's countries.

To a question on the air traffic rights between India and countries like Dubai, Mr Raju said, "Nobody believes that the (air service) agreements were done with any commercial analysis in mind."

"So, decisions at very high levels still raise questions of integrity which, at those levels, should not happen. Now, in the event of this being a fact, then it becomes very unbecoming," the minister said in an interview.

Some Indian carriers "often ask for seats but do not fly. Suppose an airline gets additional seats but does not operate its flights that frequently, can they block those additional seats," he asked, while giving the example of Kingfisher Airlines which has shut down.

"Do we have to keep their (Kingfisher's) seats aside? There might be a legal angle to it but we have to go into all these aspects," he said.

Designated airlines of a country are granted rights to operate flights to the other nation and vice-versa. The rights are either given in terms of the number of flights or seats per week. The capacity of the aircraft is also fixed at times under these bilaterals.

Since May 2013 till date, 17 new international routes have been granted to Indian carriers to fly on.