THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, 20 October 2007 — Non-resident Keralites have welcomed the Indian government’s decision to allow Jet Airways to operate on the Gulf sector and demanded more budget flights for the region.
“We appreciate the government’s decision to allow private airlines to operate on the Gulf-India sector,” Pravasi Bandhu Trust Chairman K.V. Shamsudheen said. “The Aviation Ministry is yet to permit private airlines to operate flights to Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia,” he said in a statement here.
Air-India Express, the low-cost subsidiary of India’s flag carrier, launched its flights offering fares as low as 6,000 rupees for a one-way ticket to the UAE destinations but during the summer vacation, the fares went up to more than 17,000 rupees.
“This is the way AI Express used to exploit the poor Indian workers in the Gulf who pump in precious foreign exchange into the country’s burgeoning economy. India encourages private participation and competition in all sectors except aviation,” he complained.
“The competition will bring down fares and the passengers will get better services. It will only help the country’s economy to strengthen and create more jobs,” he pointed out.
The Trust wanted the Gulf-based budget airlines like Air Arabia, Al Jazeera and Sama and regular carriers like Al Etihad, Qatar Airways, Oman Air, Emirates, Kuwait Airways and Gulf Air to be allowed to fly into all Indian airports including Calicut.
“According to a study, 90 percent of Indian expats would travel to their homeland more frequently if air fares were reduced,” he said.
“So by reducing the fare, there won’t be any loss for the airlines because they will get more passengers,” he added. The Federation of North Kerala Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNKCCI) also demanded that foreign airlines be allowed to fly to Calicut.
“Frequent cancellation of flights has made Air-India unreliable. Hence, the state-owned operator’s dominance has to be ended,” said M. Muzammil, chairman, FNKCCI.
Jet Airways was granted traffic rights on the Gulf and Middle East routes at a meeting of New Delhi’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation last week.
The Calicut Airport Committee also hoped that the opening up of the Gulf sector to the private players would end the monopoly enjoyed by the national carrier. “The move by Air-India and Indian to make the Gulf sector its monopoly and exploit NRIs in Malabar is not acceptable. This is the only airport from where they were charging exorbitant rates from Gulf-bound passengers,” the committee’s chairman P.V. Chandran said.
CIAL Presents Dividend Check to CM
The Cochin International Airport Limited, which earned a profit of Rs.371.8 million during the last fiscal year, paid a Rs.54 million dividend to the state government. The state government holds 33 percent stake while the state-owned public sector undertakings jointly hold around two percent. The 13th Annual General Meeting of the CIAL held last month declared eight percent dividend to shareholders on the paid-up capital. The total payout by way of dividend for the year 2006-07 was Rs.206 million including the dividend tax as against the 2005-06 payout of Rs.168.8 million.
The company has mailed dividend warrants to all shareholders entitled for dividend, an official statement said. Chief Minister V. S. Achuthanandan, who is also chairman of the company, received the dividend check from CIAL Managing Director S. Bharat at a function held here last week.