India and Canada sign agreement for unlimited number of flights

Canadian transport minister Omar Alghabra on Monday said that an air transport agreement between India and Canada would allow designated airlines to operate an unlimited number of flights between the countries. The previous agreement limited each country to 35 flights per week.

The agreement gives Canadian air carriers access to Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai, and Indian air carriers access to Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, Vancouver, and two additional points to be selected by India. Other cities in both countries can be served indirectly through code-share services.

This agreement will allow airlines of Canada and India to better respond to the needs of the Canada-India air transport market. Going forward, officials of both countries will remain in contact to discuss further expansion of the agreement.

“The expanded air transport agreement between Canada and India is a positive development for air transport relations between our countries. We are pleased to expand this relationship with additional flexibility for airlines to serve this growing market. By making the movement of goods and people faster and easier, this expanded agreement will continue to facilitate trade and investment between Canada and India and help our businesses grow and succeed,” Canada’s Minister of Transport.

“The Canada-India economic relationship is built on deep-rooted people to people ties. With this expanded air transport agreement, we are facilitating even more exchanges of professionals, students, business people, and investors. As we strengthen our trade and investment relationship with India, we will continue building bridges like this that enable our entrepreneurs, workers, and businesses to access new opportunities, ” said Canada’s Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development.

The new rights under the expanded agreement are available for use by airlines immediately.An expanded agreement modifies an existing bilateral agreement. It generally provides more flexible provisions to carriers. An agreement can be expanded many times.