Monday, January 31 2005 20:37 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Going full steam ahead with its decision to allow private carriers to fly abroad, the Government today (Jan 31, 2005) allotted a total of nine flights to the UK to Jet Airways and Air Sahara for the coming summer schedule starting March-end.

While Jet Airways has been allotted seven flights to London Heathrow per week, Air Sahara has been allotted two to Gatwick, highly-placed sources said after a meeting in New Delhi.

Both the private carriers, which will now be India's flag-bearers, have already got landing slots in the UK.

Air India, which already operates 18 services to UK and had applied for additional flights, has got three flights to Birmingham and three more to London, provided it could manage to get three additional slots to Heathrow, the sources said.

If Air India could not get three additional slots to London by February 15, these three flights would come back to the common pool and could be allocated to the two private carriers, they said.

Indian Airlines did not apply for slots to fly to the UK, they said.

The Government decision to allow private carriers to fly to the UK comes in the backdrop of the recently reviewed Indo-UK air services agreement, which had almost doubled the total number of weekly services between the two countries to forty.

The Government has decided to allot 33 flights to that country during the summer schedule.

The sources said, "If the UK Government agrees, all the forty flights could be advanced from summer itself."

They said the decision on other routes in East and Southeast Asia would be taken "very soon".

After the Government decision to allow private airlines to fly abroad, all the four airlines, including the AI and IA, had submitted their flight plans to the Civil Aviation Ministry. Their plans included flights to the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and other places.