Foreign airlines warned against offloading passengers

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, DEC. 6. Civil Aviation authorities here have advised international airlines against offloading passengers during the rush season of Christmas and New Year, particularly on the Singapore, Gulf and some European sectors. Acting in advance to avoid a repeat of the harassment to passengers early this year when airlines overbooked and offloaded several of them, the Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Mr. H.S. Khola, today convened a meeting of all airlines here and reviewed their capacity and booking positions. More than 60 carriers attended the meeting.

Mr. Khola told the airlines that they would have to furnish full details even if a single passenger was off-loaded. To avoid such a situation, he sought requirements of extra flights to add to capacity. Requests for addition of seasonal capacity would be favourably considered, he said.

Because of the additional capacity added last year, no offloading is anticipated even though Gulf Air, Singapore Airlines, British Airways and Lufthansa reported heavy bookings on the routes operated by them.

Bookings were scarce between December 1999 and January 2000 because of the Y2K scare. But in March, some airlines over- booked and then offloaded passengers on under-served routes. This was used to put pressure on the Government to revise bilateral civil aviation agreements with the countries involved.

During the year, the Ministry of Civil Aviation added 17,600 seats capacity per week. Agreements with Singapore International Airlines, Air France and Swiss Air came into effect. In addition, Air India's agreements with four carriers - Sabena, Emirates, Virgin Atlantic and Aeroflot - offering additional capacity from India were finalised.

Bilateral pacts were revised with Britain, Belgium, Austria, Mauritius, Dubai, Gulf, Kuwait, Qatar, Syria, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Lithuania and Malaysia, giving the designated airlines of these countries additional traffic rights to and from India. Negotiations with Germany were also initiated.

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