In all, 81 foreign airlines, including 72 passenger and nine cargo carriers, operate 1,734 scheduled services a week, Minister of State for Civil Aviation K.C. Venugopal told the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
The foreign airlines currently operate from 25 airports.
According to the Minister’s statement, Dubai-based Emirates operates 185 flights a week to India followed by the Sharjah-based low-cost airline, Air Arabia, which operates 111 weekly services.
Oman Air, with 98 weekly services, and Qatar Airways with 95 and SriLankan with 84 services are the top carriers operating to India.
Among the European carriers, British Airways and Germany’s Lufthansa operate 46 weekly services, Air France 20 while UK’s Virgin Atlantic and Turkish Airlines operate 14 weekly flights each.
From East Asia, Malaysia Airlines operates 70 weekly flights, Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways (56), Air Asia Berhad (53), low-cost Tiger Airways (42) and Cathay Pacific (35).
New routes
To ensure that Indian carriers also spread their wings across the world, the Government last November raised them to operate 1,695 international flights a week from October 2013 from 1,074 in 2012, an increase of almost 58 per cent.
The Government not only allowed domestic airlines to operate on new routes connecting India with Rome, Madrid, Moscow, Barcelona, Zurich, Dusseldorf, Ho Chi Minh City and Al Najaf (in Iraq), but also permitted them to increase the frequency of flights to international destinations in a phased manner.