Oman Air (WY, Muscat) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Paul Gregorowitsch says the carrier is open to investing in Indian airlines following New Delhi's recent decision to allow foreign firms to control up to 100% of local Indian airlines.
Despite the affirmation, however, he said several criteria need to be addressed before any initial steps can be taken among them the improvement of India's airport infrastructure as well as expanded bilateral air traffic rights.
"Recently the Indian government has allowed us to grow and now we are knocking for further growth," he told CNBC in an interview. "With new airports as well as an open skies regime it makes more sense to team up with an Indian player."
But, while India has begun the process of liberalizing its skies with other countries, only certain nations, such as those in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) bloc and those that are over 5,000 kilometres from Delhi i.e exclusive of all GCC member states, will be considered for Open Skies treaties.
As such, Oman is still required to negotiate any increases to its Air Services Agreement (ASA) with India. Even though both sides agreed last November to increase their total weekly capacity entitlements to 21,149 seats, Gregorowitsch has said Oman Air will seek to have that figure revised to 29,000 by 2018.
The ch-aviation capacity module shows Oman Air currently serves Bengaluru International, Chennai, Delhi International, Goa Dabolim, Hyderabad International, Jaipur, Kochi International, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai International, and Thiruvananthapuram with a total of 20,931 weekly seats.
