EU seeks liberalised traffic rights to take on Gulf carriers

With the aim to take on Gulf carriers, the European Union (EU) on Thursday made a pitch to the Indian government for implementing ‘open skies’ in letter and spirit and sign a common agreement with it instead of separate ones with various European countries. This, it said, would enhance direct connectivity and plug “leakages” due to some carriers “ripping off” the market and “controlling” its share of direct air traffic from India.

“The figures show that direct connectivity has been barely growing since 2009, but conversely the indirect connectivity has been booming and increased by 44%,” Olivier Jankovec, Director General of European Region of the Airports Council International told The Hindu on the sidelines of the two-day EU-India Aviation Summit.
“Of course, the indirect connectivity is diverse and it goes through Gulf and also other European airports but the share of the indirect connectivity from the three top Gulf carriers has grown from 11% to 34% since 2009. Those carriers and hub airports are taking higher share of this indirect traffic which has been at expense of our direct traffic,” he added.
He presented data during the summit to show direct connectivity between the two countries was nearly flat since 2009, but indirect connectivity increased and that between 2009 and 2023 the top 10 hubs for indirect connectivity between EU and India saw airports such as Doha climb from tenth position to the top position, Dubai from fifth to third and Abu Dhabi featuring for the first time among the top 10 at the ninth place. In contrast, Frankfurt dropped from the top position to the second, Charles de Gaulle in Paris dropped from second to sixth. During this time the three Gulf carriers Emirates, Qatar, and Etihad saw their share of EU-India indirect connectivity climb from 11% to 34%.
Mr Jankovec said that though India has an Open Skies policy for Europe under which there should be no cap on frequencies of flights as well as cities served in Europe and India, the agreements it has with some of the 26 EU States imposed restrictions.
“A comprehensive aviation agreement where they would fully liberalise aviation traffic would incentivise and enable the growth of direct traffic,” Mr Jankovec added.
Speaking during a panel discussion Jozsef Varadi, CEO of Hungarian airline Whizz Air, minced no words and said that international passenger traffic out of India was being served by “inefficient high-cost carriers” which were “ripping off” the market and “controlling” EU-India traffic and that this needed to change. He said this potential could be best tapped by low-cost carriers which were responsible for the rapid growth in the domestic aviation market in India of 14%, while international traffic growth lagged behind at 6%.
Almost on cue, Air India’s CEO Campbell Wilson said that its “low-cost carrier will start service on European markets” even as its full-service carrier continues to add frequencies and destinations in Europe. “Let the consumer choose…there is huge untapped potential and it will take more than one business model,” he added. The comments were later denied by Air India’s spokesperson.
Interestingly, the jostling for Indian passengers by foreign carriers comes at a time Gulf carriers such as Emirates as well as Turkish Airlines have sought an enhancement of seats under bilateral agreements so that they can increase flights into India, a move that Air India’s CEO has staunchly opposed. In an interview earlier this week, he said India must “not open the floodgates”, and allow Air India to develop non-stop routes as it had invested $70 billion in purchasing 470 aircraft, and that doing so was in “national interest” as it allowed Indian customers to enjoy direct connectivity.