Air India, now owned by the Tata Group, will no longer enjoy a priority in the allocation of international traffic rights after privatisation of the national carrier. This comes after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) dropped the clause which gave the former State-owned airline an advantage over other private airlines in its revised guideline issues on April 19.
Air India had preferential access to bilateral rights, which are granted under air services agreements signed between two countries -- as it was a government-owned national carrier.
DGCA’s revised guidelines are about an airline’s eligibility criteria to apply for traffic rights, procedure for allocation, utilisation and penalties for nonuse. As per the previous rules, “due consideration shall be given to operational plans submitted by Air India before allocation of the traffic rights to other eligible applicants.”
Clause 3.6 of the previous DGCA circular stated, "Due consideration shall be given to the operational plans submitted by Air India Limited before allocation of the traffic rights to the other eligible applicants."
"The central government may at its discretion grant or deny allocation of traffic rights to any air transport undertaking having regard to its preparedness to undertake such operations, viability of the operations on a particular route, overall interests of the civil aviation sector etc.," the fresh circular read. For the airlines of a particular country to operate international flights to another country, the two sides have to negotiate and sign a "bilateral air services agreement", which decides how many flights (or seats) per week can be allowed to fly from one country to the other. Once such an agreement is signed, each country is free to allocate the bilateral rights to its respective airlines. In India, the government holds the entitlements and grants them to an airline upon request. As many as121 countries have signed air service agreements with India. Despite being part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the civil aviation ministry has inked separate agreements with Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Ras Al-Khaimah.
