NEW DELHI, MAY 8: Pushing ahead with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s offer for an open skies in the SAARC region, India has sent out detailed letters outlining the offer to all SAARC members except Pakistan and has even extended fifth freedom rights for flights operating within the region. This means a SAARC airline can stopover in India, pick up passengers and fly to another SAARC country.

The offer is in line with what was agreed upon with Sri Lanka in 2003 and offered to ASEAN countries. This translates to seven flights a week to Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore besides unlimited flights to 18 tourist destinations.

While the offer of a liberal skies arrangement was made by Singh at the Dhaka SAARC summit last November, India is now willing to go a step further and extend fifth freedom rights within the region.

As for Pakistan, a different mechanism is in place and bilateral air services discussions are still going on. Sources said the government is not in a hurry to conclude an open skies with Islamabad as several basic steps like allowing private carriers to operate and adding more points of call to the existing air bilateral agreement are yet to take place. Also, talks with Pakistan are seen as part of the larger peace process.

There are requests from Colombo to further liberalise the bilateral agreement. It’s learnt that Sri Lanka wants to double the number of flights it is being allowed to India as well as add more points of call s.

pranab.samanta@expressindia.com