India Signs Open Skies Agreement with Six Countries at ICAN 2016

India Signs Open Skies Agreement with Six Countries at ICAN 2016 India has signed an Open Skies Agreement with six countries at the International Civil Aviation Negotiations (ICAN), 2016 which were held in Nassau, Bahamas from December 5-9, 2016. Open Skies Agreement was signed with Jamaica, Guyana, Czech Republic, Finland, Spain and Sri Lanka to allows unlimited number of flights

to six metro airports namely Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai.ICAO 2016

The Conference was attended by 106 countries out of ICAO membership of 191 countries. India held negotiations with 17 countries and Memorandum of Understanding was signed with 12 countries.

Shri R.N. Choubey, Secretary, Civil Aviation led the Indian Delegations at the negotiation.

Other major issues resolved at the negotiations were:

♦ India renegotiated traffic rights with Oman to increase the entitlements with 6,258 seats effective from Summer 2017 as the existing entitlements were nearly exhausted. However, no additional destinations were added to which Oman Air will fly in India.

♦ India agreed with Saudi Arabia to increase the capacity by 8000 seats per week. This was in response to the needs of increasing traffic between the two countries where Indian carriers have been utilising open sky in Damman to mount more flights than the Saudi Arabian side.

♦ India also agreed with Ghana to increase the present allocation of 2 frequencies to 7 frequencies per week to encourage connectivity between the two countries.

♦ India also signed New Air Service Agreement with the Jamaica and Guyana belonging.

♦ As per National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP 2016), code shares are to be encouraged and keeping this in view, negotiations were completed with 9 countries to enable the legal framework between the governments of these countries to make possible code shares between the airlines of two sides. The negotiations have enabled domestic code shares with Czech Republic, Portugal and Malaysia.

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