MUMBAI: Stating that the Indian government “has impaired the operating rights of U.S. carriers and has engaged in discriminatory and restrictive practices with respect to US carrier services to and from India’’, the US government on Monday issued an order, putting restrictions on Vande Bharat Mission flights to be operated by Air India between India and the US, a month from now.
The US Department of Transportation (DoT), in an order said that Air India “will be required, effective 30 days after the service date of this order, to obtain prior approval from the Department in the form of a statement of authorisation before operating any Third- and/or Fourth-Freedom charter flights to or from the United States.” The said order will be served to Air India; ministry of civil aviation, said the DoT order, dated June 22.
The US government had registered its objections with the Indian government on May 28, however the Indian government “has thus far failed to remedy the situation”, said DoT order.
The US government questioned the use of the term “evacuation’’ by Air India and MoCA, when these flights are paid for by the passengers.
“Air India has been conducting self-described “evacuation” charters (i.e., repatriation charters), between India and the United States in both directions since May 18, 2020. On May 19, 2020, an official from the Department advised Air India of the Department’s concerns that some, if not all, of Air India’s so-called evacuation charters have gone beyond true evacuations (at least on the India to the United States segments) and involved sales to any member of the general public able to enter the United States,’’ the order said.
It added that US carrier Delta airlines had on May 26, requested permission from the ministry of civil aviation to perform repatriation charter services similar to those provided by Air India, but Delta received no approval from the Indian government.
“The government of India (GoI) has imposed restrictions that prevent US air carriers from making full use of these charter rights. Specifically, the GoI has prevented US carriers from conducting India-US passenger charter operations involving direct sales to individual passengers or through other distribution systems. For its part, the United States has not placed any limitations on US – India charter operations, and Air India has been and remains free to conduct the full complement of passenger charter services provided for in the Agreement,’’ said the DoT order.
“This restrictive and discriminatory treatment of U.S. carriers as regards charters has important implications in the area of scheduled operations as well,’’ it said. On March 25, 2020, the GoI suspended all scheduled passenger services in response to public health threats. On June 3, 2020, Air India released a schedule for additional repatriation flights that includes 49 U.S.-India round-trip charter flights that are scheduled to operate between June 10-July 1, 2020. On June 13, Air India released a schedule for 10 additional repatriation flights between June 20-July 3, 2020.
“Prior to the March 25 suspension of scheduled passenger services, Air India operated 34 round-trip flights per week to the United States. With 59 flights advertised for the period from June 10 to July 3, 2020, Air India would be performing charter operation at a rate of 53% of the operations it previously performed as scheduled services. As such, it appears that Air India may be using its passenger repatriation charters as a way of circumventing the GoI-imposed prohibition of all scheduled services. This situation, in which Indian airlines are permitted to perform services pursuant to their rights under the Agreement while U.S.carriers are not, creates a competitive disadvantage for U.S. carriers vis-à-vis Indian carriers, in contravention of the fair and equal opportunity to compete provision of Article 11 of the Agreement,’’ said the order.