The airline industry in India is stepping up its opposition to full foreign ownership of an Indian domestic airline.
The Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) told the government full FDI of an airline could impact the country’s national security.
"The decision to relax the foreign investment norm (in aviation) to 100 per cent is unprecedented. No substantive country allows this," the FIA wrote in a letter to the government.
"By India permitting 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in scheduled airlines, the Indian government will have no visibility on where control lies. Such a move could also have serious repercussions on India’s national security."
The FIA also said ‘foreign owned and controlled domestic airlines’ would get access to fly in and out of certain defence airfields.
The federation also sees the potential of a 100% foreign owned entity that may be state-owned ‘creating a -non- level playing field for domestic airlines, cause tremendous losses and put even greater strain on the existing aviation infrastructure.’
Much of the worry within the India avaition industry and homegrown airlines themselves is the possibility of market entry by Gulf carrier Qatar Air which has hinted it may apply to operate a domestic airline in the country.
