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MAS flights to Bangalore, Hyderabad permitted

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, Sept. 13

IN a move aimed at creating potential assets for and enhancing the value of Air India ahead of its disinvestment, the Indian Government has given permission to Malaysian Airlines to start flights to Bangalore and Hyderabad, besides allowing it to operate four frequencies to Mumbai, two additional frequencies to Delhi and Bangalore and one to Hyderabad each week.

This decision was firmed up at the conclusion of the bilateral air services talks between the representatives of the two countries.

Sources said that while Malaysian Airlines was not very keen to operate services into Bangalore and Hyderabad, the Indian side pushed them to accept it. ``We want to encourage traffic into these two cities and, therefore, pushed for it,'' senior official s said.

They added that the agreement would help the disinvestment process as the strategic partner would have at least four additional frequencies between Mumbai-Kuala Lumpur as the bilateral air services agreements were concluded on a reciprocal basis.

``Tomorrow we can ask them for allowing four additional flights to be operated on the Mumbai-Kuala Lumpur sector. The potential buyer will get four readymade frequencies on the sector. Will not such measures attract a potential buyer and enhance the valu e of the airline?,'' officials asked.

Further, Air-India has entered into a code-share agreement with Malaysian Airlines for operating services to the west coast of the US. ``AI will enter into a commercial agreement so that the code-share agreement becomes operational. This is likely to tak e a few months,'' a senior official said.

However, there is a thinking among a section in AI, that bilateral air services agreement should not be concluded ahead of disinvestment. ``Several players will be coming in for the value of the unused bilaterals. AI is only able to utilise about 33 per cent of its bilaterals and the unutilised bilaterals are a great attraction. Such acts by the Government will dilute the disinvestment process,'' sources said.

Meanwhile, AI has been asked to provide dates for the settlement of bilateral air services with several countries such as Hong Kong, Turkmenistan and Germany at the earliest.