Indian Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh has given approval to Indian carriers to start more foreign flights allocating additional traffic rights till winter 2013. New routes are also being opened up with the ministry giving permission to start services to Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, Moscow, Sydney/Melbourne, Nairobi, Al Najaf (Iraq), Jakarta, Zurich, Ho Chi Minh City and Macao. At present these cities are not served by Indian carriers.

In the last summer schedule Indian airlines were allowed to operate 1074 services per week and the number of services have been increased to 1526 for next summer and 1695 for next winter.

The ministry of civil aviation has also decided to negotiate with governments of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Oman and Singapore to allow for more  flights between India and these countries.

Importantly the government has decided to resume negotiations with foreign states to enhance the seat entitlements available to either side thereby enabling increase in services. The government had come under fire from the Comptroller and Auditor General for  liberally enhancing seat entitlements on demand from Gulf and European airlines. These carriers particularly Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines  were thus able to increase number of flights to India and tap the market to feed their global networks.

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