Significant changes in Indo-Japan air service agreement

In a major breakthrough in terms of mutual air service between India and Japan, both sides have agreed to enhance the bilateral air service by 2010. Moreover, Japanese authorities have also concurred to allot additional 20 slots to India for operating additional 14 flight services to its congested Narita or Haneda airport of Tokyo by March 2010.

The civil aviation delegates of India and Japan held a two-day meeting on June 17-18 in Tokyo for discussing the matters regarding further development of aviation relations between the two countries.

According to the signed agreement, Japan will allot 20 extra slots at Narita airport for Indian carrier to operate the flights to Tokyo freely. At present Tokyo has allotted only eight slots that are sufficient for only four flight services in which Air India, India’s public air service is already operating 4 flights per week to Tokyo. Moreover, it also operates two services per week to Osaka, the second biggest city of Japan.

In a crucial development of bilateral agreement, both the countries have agreed to enhance the flight services from current 21 services in a week to 42 by March 2010. In 42 services, Japanese aircraft will fly between Tokyo to Mumbai and Tokyo to Delhi 14 times each in a week while Indian carriers will be allowed to fly up to 28 times per week from the points in India to Tokyo.

Japan is the major hub of economy on the global map and that’s why Tokyo is one of the most crucial destination points. The air traffic to Japan is one of the busiest routes and India has less number of direct flights to Tokyo. But after fructifying the agreement, the opportunities to reach Tokyo will be enhanced for the Indian commuters and the airfares will also be declined due to direct connection. At present, only few flights reaches to Tokyo directly for India while most of them go to either via Hong Kong or Osaka.

R K Singh, Joint Secretary, the Ministry of Civil Aviation from India has led the Indian delegates while Japanese Deputy Director Civil Aviation Bureau Ryuhei Maeda led the Japanese delegates.