With the purpose to take on Gulf carriers, the European Union (EU) on Thursday made a pitch to the Indian authorities for implementing ‘open skies’ in letter and spirit and signal a standard settlement with it as an alternative of separate ones with varied European nations. This, it mentioned, would improve direct connectivity and plug “leakages” due to some carriers “ripping off” the market and “controlling” its share of direct air traffic from India.
“The figures show that direct connectivity has been barely growing since 2009, but conversely the indirect connectivity has been booming and increased by 44%,” Olivier Jankovec, Director General of European Region of the Airports Council International instructed The Hindu on the sidelines of the two-day EU-India Aviation Summit.
“Of course, the indirect connectivity is diverse and it goes through Gulf and also other European airports but the share of the indirect connectivity from the three top Gulf carriers has grown from 11% to 34% since 2009. Those carriers and hub airports are taking higher share of this indirect traffic which has been at expense of our direct traffic,” he added.
He offered knowledge in the course of the summit to present direct connectivity between the 2 nations was almost flat since 2009, however oblique connectivity elevated and that between 2009 and 2023 the highest 10 hubs for oblique connectivity between EU and India noticed airports similar to Doha climb from tenth place to the highest place, Dubai from fifth to third and Abu Dhabi that includes for the primary time among the many high 10 on the ninth place. In distinction, Frankfurt dropped from the highest place to the second, Charles de Gaulle in Paris dropped from second to sixth. During this time the three Gulf carriers Emirates, Qatar, and Etihad noticed their share of EU-India oblique connectivity climb from 11% to 34%.
Mr Jankovec mentioned that although India has an Open Skies coverage for Europe underneath which there needs to be no cap on frequencies of flights in addition to cities served in Europe and India, the agreements it has with among the 26 EU States imposed restrictions.
“A comprehensive aviation agreement where they would fully liberalise aviation traffic would incentivise and enable the growth of direct traffic,” Mr Jankovec added.
Speaking throughout a panel dialogue Jozsef Varadi, CEO of Hungarian airline Whizz Air, minced no phrases and mentioned that worldwide passenger traffic out of India was being served by “inefficient high-cost carriers” which had been “ripping off” the market and “controlling” EU-India traffic and that this wanted to change. He mentioned this potential could possibly be greatest tapped by low-cost carriers which had been answerable for the fast progress within the home aviation market in India of 14%, whereas worldwide traffic progress lagged behind at 6%.
Almost on cue, Air India’s CEO Campbell Wilson mentioned that its “low-cost carrier will start service on European markets” whilst its full-service provider continues to add frequencies and locations in Europe. “Let the consumer choose…there is huge untapped potential and it will take more than one business model,” he added. The feedback had been later denied by Air India’s spokesperson.
Interestingly, the jostling for Indian passengers by overseas carriers comes at a time Gulf carriers similar to Emirates in addition to Turkish Airlines have sought an enhancement of seats underneath bilateral agreements in order that they’ll improve flights into India, a transfer that Air India’s CEO has staunchly opposed. In an interview earlier this week, he mentioned India should “not open the floodgates”, and permit Air India to develop continuous routes because it had invested $70 billion in buying 470 plane, and that doing so was in “national interest” because it allowed Indian prospects to take pleasure in direct connectivity.
