Rivalry on Jet’s global slots distribution | Air India and Indigo will get most of the slots | SpiceJet, Vistara and GoAir expressed disapproval
“The rights are to be apportioned in accordance with the Aeronautical Information Circular or AIC, which gives Air India first claim on the entitlements”, the airline promoter who recorded his opposition, as per source.
- The abrupt departure of Jet Airways last month left various national and international slots vacant.
- Afterwards, various airlines approached the Aviation Ministry to get Jet Airways’ slots.
- Air India will get about half of the foreign flying rights of the grounded Jet Airways, on high-demand routes.
- Most of the domestic slots of Jet will be designated to IndiGo, since its a market leader.
- SpiceJet, Vistara and GoAir expressed disapproval to this ‘monopoly’ at a meeting convened by aviation secretary P. S. Kharola.
Air India’s international slot share has been decided. It will get about 5,700 weekly seats on the India-Dubai route, over 5,000 on the India-Qatar route besides about 4,600 additional seats to and from London.
Is this a temporary allocation?
The objective is to immediately provide flights for passengers who are paying high fares, mostly to foreign airlines. This objective will be attained by those airlines that can provide immediate capacity and who have slots at both origin and destination.
The rule referred to was made in 2005 with the objective of protecting the incumbent carriers at that time, primarily Air India. The rule is not relevant to the temporary allocation that is being done at this time. The ministry has already ignored this rule by allotting some of Jet’s traffic rights to Air India on a temporary basis.
The allocations are supposed to be temporary and with an intent of minimising inconvenience to the travelling public, pending Jet’s possible revival, the government should allocate it to carriers that already operate on those routes.
