The Hindu Business Line : Foreign airlines offer 1,639 extra flights in open sky period

THE limited open-sky policy is proving to be a major draw, with the Government receiving as many as 1,639 requests for `slots' allocation from various international airlines to operate flights during the winter season.

In airline parlance, slots are a slice of time allocated to each airline for its planes to use the runway for take-off or landing operations. In effect, what this means is that the Government has received requests for more than 1,600 additional flights to be operated during the five-month limited open sky period.

The Government has already announced that it will follow an open sky policy between November 1 this year and March 31, 2005. During the limited open sky period, airlines will be allowed to operate either more flights or operate larger aircraft to ensure that passengers do not face any trouble in travelling to and from India.

Sources indicated that during the current open-sky period, the number of additional air seats on offer is expected to cross the 3,25,000-mark. During the open-sky period in 2003-04, international airlines offered 2,75,000 additional air seats.

Official sources indicated that almost 65 per cent of the requests received for operations during the 2004-05 open sky period are from airlines fromSouth East Asia and the Gulf. A number of international airlines, including the Dubai-based Emirates airlines, Kuwait Airways, Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines, have already announced their intention of taking up the limited open sky offer.

While Lufthansa is to operate a daily service on the Frankfurt-Bangalore sector, Kuwait Airways is to offer an additional 200 seats in each direction on the Kuwait-Mumbai-Kuwait route between November and March next year.

Similarly, Austrian Airlines will add two flights from Delhi to Vienna during the open-sky period, while Emirates will be operating additional flights from Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kochi. The maximum number of additional flights that it will operate, would be from Mumbai, Emirates has said.

Jet dominates market: Jet Airways continues to dominate the domestic aviation market, capturing a 43.4 per cent market share till August. Indian Airlines commanded a market share of 38.8 per cent, while Air Sahara had 14.5 per cent market share till the end of August, official sources said.