Jet may get nod for Gulf flights

Mumbai/New Delhi: Jet Airways may get permission to start flying to Gulf next year. This follows a review of the policy to reserve flights to the Gulf for Air-India and Indian.
Gulf-based carriers have been expanding in India, and there is a view that the two public sector carriers are not matching this with additional capacity.
Jet’s operations on these high-turnover sectors are likely to impact margins of A-I and Indian. The government had promised these airlines a five-year exclusivity to Gulf, when international operations were permitted for Jet and Sahara. However, there was no written commitment to the effect.
Air Sahara is also likely to get the nod, but it is not clear if it will jump join the fray since it is still recovering from the failed merger with Jet.
Jet is likely to start flying to Gulf cities during ’07. Air-India, Indian and Air India Express currently control over 50% of the India-Gulf traffic.
25/11/06 Cuckoo Paul & Ganapathy Subramaniam/Economic Times

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