Freedom to fly, at last?

If the government actually moves to scrap Air India’s monopoly over bilaterals, or the right to fly to international destinations, it won’t come a day too soon. International routes are where airlines make the most money and, in the context of the fight over high sales taxes over ATF, there are no sales taxes to be paid on ATF for global flights—just this allows airlines to cut costs by around 8 percentage points. Despite having a lucrative monopoly, estimates are Air India has been unable to utilise its foreign flying rights in most cases—about 75% of flying rights on profitable routes like those to Middle East remain unutilised because of shortage of aircraft.

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