India, China ink MoU to augment air services

It is learnt that Jet Airways — currently the only private airline in India with rights to fly on international routes — will start operations along the Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco sector starting May 5 this year. Jet Airways, therefore, is set to become the first non-Chinese airline that would be allowed to operate from China. That apart, Jet Airways is also planning services to Los Angeles via Hong Kong.

Earlier this month, Jet had applied to the Ministry of Civil Aviation for permission to start operations to Los Angeles via Hong Kong. In fact, the airline was in such a hurry to expand its international operations before rival Kingfisher-Deccan partnership launches its US flights by August this year that it had requested the ministry to be allowed to fly via Hong Kong to US as well from May this year. Jet Airways is likely to push on these routes its two new Boeing 777s.

While Jet had sought the Hong Kong route to service its Mumbai-San Francisco flight after it got worried with the delay by the Chinese side in giving permission to fly via Shanghai, it has now decided to use the Hong Kong route to connect Los Angeles instead. But the daily Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco route will remain the priority for Jet Airways though it is also keen to score over rival Kingfisher that plans to launch its non-stop flight from Bangalore to San Francisco in August.

The plans of Jet Airways to develop Shanghai as its Asia-Pacific hub, however, will take a long time. Since India has only got flying rights to San Francisco via Shanghai so far, it will take several rounds of talks and far more traffic rights from there on to make Shanghai the hub, say officials.

India has specified the United States and Canada as one region, Australia and New Zealand as the second region and Asia as the third region for the three ‘beyond times’ for services. For China, Africa is one region, Middle-East (including Gulf) is a second region and Europe the third for the three ‘beyond points’ operations.

While India has chosen San Francisco as a ‘beyond point’ as of now, China has reserved its decision on beyond points in India as their airlines have not yet indicated any destinations. India is also yet to decide on destinations other than San Francisco in specified regions.

China has also given to Indian authorities all documents related to their cargo carrier Great Wall Airlines for operations to Mumbai and Chennai. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had earlier shot off a notice to Chinese authorities asking them to submit requisite documents in time for security clearances. India had permitted Great Wall Airlines to fly to these two new destinations besides Delhi earlier this year.

The Indian delegation was headed by R K Singh, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Chinese delegation was headed by Li Jiang Min, Director General, Department of International Affairs and Cooperations, CAAC, People’s Republic of China.