Ease Of Flying Abroad: DGCA Eases Norms For Indian Carriers To Start Service On New International Destinations

The centre has relaxed its norms making it easier for Indian carriers to launch new international destinations.

The aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) assesses the preparedness of Indian airlines before permitting them to fly to a new foreign destination.

This involves a huge amount of documentation required to be completed by the airlines. As such, the DGCA on Monday (12 June) revamped the regulatory requirement with the dropping of redundant and generic provisions in existing checklist.

The checklist for assessing a new destination has been pruned from 33 points to just 10, in a bid to make it easier for them to spread their network to hitherto unserved places.

"In order to further ease the process of granting such permissions, the existing regulatory requirements have been comprehensively reviewed in consultation with all stakeholders and the current 33-point checklist has been rationalised and reduced to a 10-point checklist related to their preparedness for the intended operations," the DGCA said in a statement.

"The objective of this rationalisation is to simplify and facilitate the process for Indian carriers to start a new international destination and would significantly reduce the documentation/compliances required to be submitted by the operators. This systemic reform comes at a time when the Indian carriers are poised to expand their international footprint," the statement added.

While travel demand is on the rise, India has relatively less direct international air connectivity and overseas traffic is catered to mostly by foreign carriers with connecting flights — about two-thirds of India's international passenger traffic is carried by foreign airlines.

However, the tide is turning slowly with the rising share of domestic airline industry. Indian carriers ferried over 43 per cent international traffic in January-March 2023.

The move to simplify the flying requirements comes amidst the push by the government to develop an international aviation hub in the country.