One more helping, please!

For airlines in the Gulf, India is a critical market. It is the jetloads of traffic that they ferry from the subcontinent that packs their aircraft as they fly westwards to Europe and North America. And even eastwards to Australia and New Zealand. No wonder they keep asking for more and more seats.

- AMEYA JOSHI

On the sidelines of the CAPA summit in late March, almost every CEO from airlines outside India wanted to speak about having additional seats to India.in other words, an increased and liberal bilateral arrangement that gives their airlines more frequencies and more opportunities to be a part of the booming traffic in the sub-continent. It is a perpetual demand which took a break during the pandemic times and as traffic returns and airlines in some parts of the world report record-breaking profits, carriers especially the Middle Eastern ones, are back to demanding more seats to India.

This comes following a similar request in August 2022, when Dubai's Civil Aviation Authority director-general Mohammed A Ahli had, in a letter to Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, asked India to allow Amritsar, Tiruchirapalli, Coimbatore, Kannur, Goa, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati and Pune to become additional points of call for Dubai carriers. "As your esteemed offices will be aware, the current seat capacity of 65,200 seats was established vide the terms of the MoU between our respective Governments in 2014. In the past seven years not only has there been a very strong growth of passenger and freight between Dubai and India, but also both our countries have been at the forefront of major developments in aviation whether they be new state-of-the-art airports/terminals, - as new technology aircraft or other aviation-related technological advancements. With more than 1.4 million expatriate Indians in Dubai a number that has grown steadily over the past decade years well as the ever-increasing trade and cultural exchanges between our two countries, we feel that the need for enhancing air connectivity between Dubai and India is stronger than ever before." he had said while requesting for more seats in August 2022.