India signs Open Skies agreement with SL

India has signed agreements with Sri Lanka, Finland, Spain and three other countr ies whereby airlines from those nations can operate unlimited number of flights to six Indian metro airports.

Such pacts have also been inked with Jamaica, Guyana, and Czech Republic.

Terming the pact as "Open Skies agreement as per National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP) 2016", the Civil Aviation Ministry yesterday said the new arrangement would encourage connectivity and passenger travel between India and these countries.

The pacts allow "unlimited number of flights to six metro airports namely Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai," it said in a release.

New Air Service Agreements have also been signed with Jamaica and Guyana. These agreements were signed during the recently concluded International Civil Aviation Negotiations (ICAN) 2016 at Nassau, Bahamas.

According to the release, India held negotiations with 17 countries and Memorandum of Understanding was signed with 12 countries at ICAN.

Besides, India has re-negotiated traffic rights with Oman increasing the entitlements with 6,258 seats.

With Saudi Arabia, India has agreed to increase the capacity by 8,000 seats per week, the release said.

"Indian also agreed with Ghana to increase the present allocation of 2 frequencies to 7 frequencies per week to encourage connectivity between the two countries," it added.

The ministry said negotiations were completed with 9 countries to enable the legal framework to make possible code shares between the airlines of two sides.

"The negotiations have enabled domestic code shares with Czech Republic, Portugal and Malaysia, domestic and international code shares including third country airlines with Guyana...," the release said.

Resolution of other issues relating to Air Services Agreement was also completed with Ghana, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Portugal, Hong Kong, Ethiopia and Bangladesh, it added. (PTI)