India and Singapore Signed Memorandum of Understanding on Air Services

India and Singapore on 2 April 2013 signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on bilateral air services arrangement during the visit of Civil Aviation Minister, Ajit Singh to Singapore. It rationalizes the capacity entitlements of both countries in terms of seats per week in each direction with a route specific cap for Singapore on each route.

The MoU also enhances, by 10%, the capacity entitlement with India now entitled to operate 29,400 weekly passenger seats from India to Singapore and the designated airlines of Singapore entitled to operate 28,700 weekly passenger seats from Singapore to India. No additional point of call has been given to Singapore. India also did not agree to the demand of Singapore for additional point of calls from Pune and Madurai.

The common pool rights to the extent of 5160 seats earlier available to Singapore, which provided greater operational flexibility to Singapore carriers at major metro centres viz Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai, have now been withdrawn. The designated airlines of Singapore can operate with any aircraft type except A-380. The delegation level talks were held between  Prabhat Kumar, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Yap Ong Heng, Director-General, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. Both the sides have agreed to review and update the air services agreement and meet every two years to discuss various air services matters.