New Delhi: All 'old' Indian carriers, including Air India, Jet Airways and IndiGo, have firmly opposed the aviation ministry's move to relax the rule that an Indian airline must be at least five-year-old and have 20 planes in its fleet as a pre-condition to fly abroad. The ministry called a meeting of all airlines on this 5/20 rule on Wednesday and gave them one more week to give their views on the issue.
"Aviation secretary V Somasundaran categorically told us Wednesday that 5/20 will have to go and we must now give our views on what the change should be like. Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju had earlier said that 5/20 will go. All old airlines have opposed this change as they suffered huge losses meeting the requirement of flying to uneconomic routes in remote areas for five years after which they got rights to fly abroad. The change is to benefit new players," said a senior official of an airline, who attended the meeting.
National carrier AI has also opposed this change. "UPA did massive damage to Indian carriers' interests in general and AI's in particular by giving massive flying rights to Gulf carriers. So much so that a leading Gulf airline is now called India's de facto national carrier.
29/01/15 Times of India
