Do away with 5/20 norms for international ops: CAPA

Favouring scrapping of the international flying norms for domestic airlines on the ground that its continuation would only result in more un-utilised bilateral, an off-shore aviation research firm today welcomed government's decision to go for public consultations prior to finalising the new aviation policy.
At present, an Indian carriers is allowed to fly overseas only when it has completed five years of domestic operations and have a minimum of 20 aircraft fleet.
The norm popularly known as "5/20" is, however, being reviewed by the government.
"We expect 5/20 rule to be abolished post the public consultations of the draft civil aviation policy... Continuing 5/20 will increase the gap in India's bilateral utilisation and hence, impact overall expansion of bilateral," Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) chief executive for South Asia Kapil Kaul said today.

CAPA is a Sydney-based aviation research and consultancy firm.
His comments came following a review of the draft aviation policy by Prime Minister Narendra Modi early this week, which has been drafted by the Indian arm of the Amsterdam-headquartered global auditing firm KPMG.

He said CAPA welcomes Prime Minister's decision to hold public consultations and study the financial impact of the new draft policy.
Even as a section of the industry including the new entrants like Tata-SIA joint venture airline Vistara, and AirAsia India, which is the Indian subsidiary of the Malaysian budget airline AirAsia are strongly rooting for abolition of 5/20 norms, established players under the banner of FIA are vehemently opposed to any such move.

The Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) -- comprising IndiGo, Jet Airways, SpiceJet and GoAir -- had in a letter to Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday while opposing any changes in the existing norms, raised several issues concerning the sector and sought a meeting to discuss the same.
Terming FIA opposition as "unfortunate", Kaul said, "it promotes restrictive and negative regulations. Airlines like Indigo have been victims of 5/20 rule as they had to wait for 5 years to start International operations. KFA had to acquire Deccan to start International operations and this proved very costly for KFA."
Industry , new or old airlines, must support to end negative regulations and promote positive industry order, he said.

Vistara and Air Asia business plan and long term strategy is already impacted by the continuation of 5/20, he said adding that "abolition of the norm altogether or replacing it with a 2/10 kind of rule may be more suitable for both.