Overview
- Pieter Elbers said claims that India is withholding bilateral traffic rights are wrong, asserting rights are granted selectively where they make sense with reciprocity in mind.
- Air India chief Campbell Wilson urged liberalisation at a pace that does not undercut domestic wide-body investments, noting much traffic carried by some foreign airlines from India is only transiting.
- Gulf carriers have pushed for more access, but the government has held firm on limits such as roughly 66,000 weekly seats each way under the India–Dubai agreement.
- IndiGo is expanding internationally with new routes to London, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Manchester, and now operates more than 2,200 daily flights with a fleet above 400 aircraft.
- Elbers noted non-Indian airlines historically held greater capacity into India, while Indian carriers today have large aircraft orders and are committing billions to infrastructure, with slot scarcity at major overseas airports flagged as an added constraint.