Qatar Airways calls for open sky policy in India

Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar Al Baker on Saturday flayed Indian authorities for a “protectionist aviation policy” and said the airline is keen to expand its network in the South Asian nation.

Qatar Airways’ inaugural flight at the Sharjah International Airport. — Supplied photo

“We are keen to expand our footprint in India, but the Indian government is not ready to open up the sector,” he said at the media briefing on Qatar Airways’ inaugural flight to Sharjah and Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central on Saturday.

Al Baker, who remained in an aggressive mood throughout the media briefing at Sharjah airport, first had an outburst on the Indian government and then Western Europe for not granting landing rights to Gulf carriers in line with their stance on an open sky policy.

He expressed hope that the new government in India will reconsider the aviation policy protecting the interests of few politicians in the country.

“I hope that the new government after the upcoming general elections will revisit the aviation regime in India and look at the interests of the people and not the interests of politicians,” he said.

“India is an economic giant and huge market for us. Airlines operating to and from India have up to 85 per cent seat load factor, but due to restricted landing rights we are unable to expand our network in the country,” he added.

He said Qatar Airways, which already flies to 13 destinations in India, still has room to increase its business in the country.

“We still have a room to grow our operations in India.”

Al Baker said Gulf carriers are operating in an efficient way and they are not only playing a pivotal role in promoting tourism and development in the region, but also fuelling growth in Western Europe and America by placing huge orders for new aircraft.

“Gulf carriers are directly responsible for creating hundreds of jobs and promoting tourism in Western Europe. The Airbus A380 production facility will no more feasible if Emirates doesn’t place a huge order,” he said.

“The concerns raised by certain quarters in Western Europe are baseless. It is the fact that some Western airlines are ‘inefficient’ and unable to compete the Gulf carriers, some airlines are ‘efficient and they want to have a ‘bigger piece of [the] cake’ in a competitive market,” he said.

To a question, he said some airlines in the United States also raised concerns over the growing presence of Gulf carriers in the continent, but he expressed hope that the US government will follow the open sky policy.

“The US government believes in free trade and open sky policy and I hope ‘reasoning’ will prevail at the end.”

To a question, he said the airline is in touch with the US authorities concerned for customs clearance at Doha airport. In reply to another, he said Qatar Airways’ operations in Egypt are going smoothly and are not affected by the political instability in the country.

“We have very close relationship with Egypt. Qatar also hosts a large population of Egyptian expats. Our flights to Cairo are going full and serving the Egyptian expats in the country,” Al Baker said.

— muzaffarrizvi@khaleejtimes.com