More flying rights for all, but India has a different idea in mind

livemint.com:

Mint that the civil aviation ministry is working on a national aviation hub policy to encourage Indian airlines in international expansion. The policy may also introduce differential charges for Indian and foreign airlines at airports in the country. “I think it is time with around 15.5 crore domestic and 6 crore international passengers that we look at creating a hub in India; earlier, we didn’t have the numbers.

Therefore, we have taken up Delhi as a pilot to create that hub where we are working with Delhi airport, Air India as well as IndiGo to do an international-domestic, domestic-international and even an international-international connection," Scindia said. As the concept of a hub is to ensure immediate connectivity between a domestic and an international flight with minimum travel time, the civil aviation ministry will engage the ministries of finance, tourism, external affairs and home so that a viable plan can be put in place with allocation of responsibilities, he added. Foreign airlines, however, feel India is a large enough country and both Indian and foreign carriers can grow.

“We have always maintained that any increase in flights helps consumers as it means lower fares and increased connectivity at the same time. Also, foreign and Indian airlines can work together to make India an aviation hub," said an Indian executive of a large foreign airline. The lure of India’s aviation market has increased after the covid pandemic, with global industry estimates suggesting the recovery of the domestic aviation ecosystem has been the fastest in the world.