NEW DELHI: India and Britain have signed an open sky pact to ease restrictions on the number of scheduled flights between the two countries. As a result limits on flights from key Indian cities including Chennai and Kolkata have been scrapped.
In a statement, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on Thursday said the pact has opened up all destinations in the Britain for Indian carriers for code share flights, and reciprocally basis.
“British carriers can also operate code share flights to any international airport in India, through domestic code share arrangements,” MoCA said in a statement.
The pact will also allow for a greater range of flights for passengers while providing a boost for trading and tourism for the Britain and India, it added
The agreement was formally signed by Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati and Aviation Minister of U.K Lord Ahmad of Britain who led the delegation of British companies for the 2017 CAPA India Aviation Summit starting later this month.
Raju, said, “the increase in the number of flights between the two countries will bring direct and indirect benefits to many sectors of the economies of our two countries”.
Tourism from India makes an important contribution to the British economy. In 2015. There were 4.22 lakh tourists from India to the Britain, bringing more than £433 million to the British economy.
Lord Ahmad said: “India is a rapidly expanding and important market for aviation that will allow airlines to develop new services and air routes. The final decision on additional flights between the UK and India is a commercial one for airlines.”