NEW DELHI, Oct 18:
The bilateral Airlines Services Agreement (ASA) between India and Turkey should be modified to add more direct flights between the two countries, Turkish envoy to India has said.
At present, Turkish Airlines is the only airline that flies direct between Turkey and India. It flies once a day each from Mumbai and Delhi.
“This is one of fullest lines anywhere. Once a day is too little for the amount of interest,” Turkish Ambassador to India Burak Akcapar told reporters on the sidelines of a function here yesterday.
Asked whether additional flights were possible under the bilateral ASA, he said it has to be either renegotiated or a temporary permission can be granted, either way.
“We are hoping that this permission comes early because the impact on tourism flows is prompt. The availability of seats is lesser compared to the surge in interest among people,” the Ambassador said.
He also said Turkish Airlines has a code-sharing agreement with Air India.
“What they want to do is, they want to double the fights from Delhi and Mumbai to twice a day and also want to open six more destinations in India such as Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Amritsar and Kolkata”.
Further, Akcapar said, Turkey has established a working group to bring together its tourism and aviation sectors to attract more tourists to the country.
“We had the first meeting of the working group that will bring our tourism and aviation industries together. This is just not about tourism, just not about aviation… It is not only tourism from India to Turkey, but also from Turkey to India,” he said.
For this purpose, Turkey welcomes all airlines which are interested to fly between the two countries, he added. (PTI)
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