Spanish authorities are in advanced conversations with Air India to restart flights from Madrid, Spain’s ambassador to India, Jose Maria Ridao Dominguez told businessline. “A decision on this is likely to happen soon,” he said. Prior to Covid-19 pandemic, Air India was operating direct flights between Delhi and Madrid. However, post-pandemic, the airline is yet to restart operations.

“We have raised this question on several levels with the Indian authorities, and there are some hindrances but we are fully convinced we feel that this year, it will be solved. We have also spoken to the new owners. We have given them all the information about Indians in Spain, visas, legal advice, we have reopened conversations on the agreements with Spain in the past,” Dominguez said.

Air India did not offer a comment. However, sources said that the airline is mulling the addition amid its international expansion.

DGCA Data

The then State-owned Air India started direct operations between Delhi-Madrid from December 01, 2016. Air India used its brand new Boeing Dreamliner 787 plane to operate these flights. According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation data, 2988 passengers flew from Madrid to Delhi whereas 1553 passengers flew to Delhi from Madrid.

Post covid, Air India is yet to resume operations to Stockholm besides Madrid. Though it has resumed operations to its other international destinations.

Right before covid hit in Q1FY20, In Q4 of FY19, 8936 passengers from Spain flew to india. Whereas, 6269 passengers traveled to Spain from India. Air India.

Speaking on trade

Speaking about trade, the Spanish ambassador to India said, “India maintains a good trade relation with Spain. Not only that, Spain is the most important European hub for Latin America, and we are in touch with them. The main obstacle is to have enough fleet. We think it will be a win-win situation for both the countries to have direct flight.”

According to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry data, for the first two quarters, the trade between India and Spain stood at ₹27,897.48 crore, which was on the 34th level.

Three Latin American countries are a part of the G20 countries Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. Trade between Brazil and India for the said period stood at ₹51,178.33 crore, in 25th position. Trade between Argentina and India stood at ₹16,918.41 crore for the period and with Mexico stood at ₹33,711.11 crore.

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