India, Netherlands revise pact to allow seven additional flights

India and the Netherlands have revised the air services agreement allowing carriers from both the countries to operate an additional seven flights each week. This will benefit Jet Airways and KLM, which currently fly between India and Amsterdam.

An agreement was signed by civil aviation ministry and its Dutch counterpart in Delhi on Wednesday. The two sides, however, were unable to conclude an open skies pact, for which negotiations will be held later. 

“The number of weekly frequencies has been increased from 21 to 28 and capacity cap at the destination has been removed. Earlier, airlines from Netherlands were restricted to operating seven weekly flights at an airport in India and now that restriction has been eased. The Dutch have been given additional code share points within India,” said an official from the civil aviation ministry.

Jet Airways has code share agreement with Air France-KLM covering routes in Europe and the United States. It has made Amsterdam as its European gateway.  Passenger traffic between India and the Netherlands is growing and in first eight months of 2016 it rose by 56 per cent.

The increase in seat entitlement for Netherlands comes in the wake of revision in traffic rights with Oman, Saudi Arabia and other countries last month.

Open skies pacts were also signed with Jamaica, Guyana, Czech Republic, Finland, Spain and Sri Lanka during the International Civil Aviation Negotiations in Bahamas last month.