By IANS
New Delhi : After concluding a major bilateral civil aviation pact with Saudi Arabia, India Thursday announced similar agreements with Bahrain and Oman to give more choice to the four million Indian diaspora in the Gulf region.
The signing of the bilateral pact with Bahrain in New Delhi immediately resulted in the Gulf Air, Bahrain’s flag carrier, announcing a daily service from Hyderabad with plans to increase the frequencies from Kochi and Kolkata.
“While agreeing on designation of multiple airlines, both sides also decided to enhance existing traffic entitlement to 11,500 seats per week in each direction with immediate effect,” an official statement said Thursday, referring to the agreement reached with Bahrain.
“For the Sultanate of Oman, Bangalore and Kozhikode have been included as an additional point of call besides Mumbai, New Delhi, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Jaipur,” another statement said.
The entitlement of seats to Oman has been enhanced to 11,550 seats per week.
“The success of this swift bilateral aviation agreement between the Kingdom of Bahrain and India presents a golden opportunity for the two countries to boost their economic and cultural development,” said Gulf Air president Bjorn Naf.
“Being the first Middle East carrier to operate to India, Gulf Air considers this as a token of appreciation for its long-standing commitment to serve India,” Naf told reporters soon after the bilateral pacts were announced.
Last week, Saudi Arabia allowed Indian carriers to operate scheduled air service to Madina, 485 km from Makkah, which would allow Indian Haj pilgrims to land directly in the holy city, in the first such concession to any country.
The two countries also decided to increase the existing traffic entitlement from 8,500 seats to 20,000 seats per week with immediate effect, with India offering additional cities of Kozhikode, Lucknow and Bangalore to Saudi carriers.
In the pacts with Bahrain and Oman, the two respective sides decided to free up all limitations on the cargo services, with no restrictions in frequency and point of call for carriers operating cargo services.
“With the successful conclusion of the agreement, airlines of both sides will be able to add new services on the Indian-Bahrain route, which will be in the interests of travellers,” the statement said.
Interestingly, Oman has allowed designated Indian carriers to use any point in Asia, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Bahrain, as intermediate points, and any destination in Europe, North America, Asia and the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain as “beyond points”.
This will allow Indian carriers to not only fly to Oman, but also pick up air traffic there to fly to other designated countries. The same will apply when they fly back to India, officials explained.
AS similar concession has been extended by Bahrain.
“The request of the Omani side to grant Mangalore as an additional point of call in India will be considered only after Mangalore is declared an international airport. For India the points of call in Oman are Muscat and Salalah.”