By IANS,
Hyderabad : The government has no objection to the proposed alliance between Jet Airlines and Kingfisher if the operational details are within the existing legal and regulatory framework, Minister for Civil Aviation Praful Patel said here Wednesday.
“We don’t have the details yet but if the alliance is within the existing legal and regulatory framework then we have no objection to such consequences of the working of market forces,” Patel said at a media conference here after inaugurating India’s first civil aviation air show India Aviation 2008.
Earlier, speaking on the sidelines of a conclave between chief executives of major airlines and the minister, R.P. Sahi, joint director general of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, had told reporters the same thing.
“We don’t know the details yet but code sharing, route rationalization and crew sharing are all permissible,” he had said.
As long as there is no devil in the small print and the Jet Airlines-Kingfisher alliance plan is within the existing legal and regulatory framework, it should meet with no objections from the government or the DGCA, Sahi said.
Both airlines said Wednesday that there will be no equity swaps nor do they have any plans for equity deals. Hence, the alliance will not require capital market and other regulatory clearances that a merger and acquisition involving equity requires.