India expected grant additional 10,000 seats to Dubai airlines

Dubai airlinesIndian aviation authorities will meet over the next few days to discuss Dubai's proposal for increasing seat capacity by 20 per cent, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh has confirmed.

The aviation ministry is expected to grant Dubai additional capacity of 10,000 seats per week. Dubai has been asking for an increase of at least 20,000 seats, but sources said it will likely get only half of that.

Till the end of 2013, Dubai airlines Emirates and flydubai had completely exhausted their current 54,200 seats capacity assigned to them on Dubai-India routes. On the other and, Indian airlines had exhausted just 81 per cent of their entitlement. More precisely, Indian airlines had used 43,792 seats per week from 53,423 seats entitled to them.

Speaking on the topic, Mr. Ajit Singh said, "The inter-ministerial group on the issue will meet soon. Dubai has been asking for more bilaterals as the current entitlement on both sides has been fully used up."

Dubai airlines, which have long been asking for an increase in their seat capacity, were last granted flying rights in 2008.

Last year, the aviation ministry had suffered severe criticism after it hiked Abu Dhabi's weekly flying rights by around four times, granting the Gulf country's airlines additional 36,670 seats