India-Malaysia air traffic flies on Indonesian wings

The busy India-Malaysia air sector is seeing a sudden spike in traffic, thanks to some ingenuity of AirAsia and Lion Group – the two low-cost carriers from Southeast Asia.

The carriers which have exhausted the bilateral rights – the number of seats and flights they can operate to India and back – are using the fifth freedom rights meant for Indonesian airlines to cater to the growing traffic, according to a report by aviation consultant CAPA.

In aviation parlance, fifth freedom (also beyond rights) is the right of an airline to fly passengers from its home country, deposit them at an international destination, and then carry passengers to another international destination.

AirAsia Group has resumed services from Kuala Lumpur to Mumbai, using A330s operated by Indonesia AirAsia X, and is planning to add capacity on the Kuala Lumpur-Kolkata route using A320s operated by Indonesia AirAsia.

Similarly, the Lion Air Group has launched services in the Kuala Lumpur-Chennai market using 737-900ERs operated by Batik Air.

As a result of which AirAsia Group's Malaysia-India capacity has increased more than 20% to nearly 20,000 weekly seats, as flights operated by Malaysia based AirAsia and AirAsia X are supplemented by the new flights operated by Indonesia AirAsia and Indonesia AirAsia X.

At the same time, Lion Group's capacity in the Malaysia-India market has increased nearly 30% to more than 11,000 weekly seats as flights operated by Malindo are supplemented by the new Batik flights.

However, Malaysia Airlines – which is the only other competitor in the Malaysia-India market and also keen to expand – is losing out as it does not have an Indonesian affiliate, said the report.

According to the analysts, though fifth freedom rights are considered as an economical way for the long- haul flights to be more efficient, the local airlines often cite it as an unfair competition meant to sidestep the bilateral rights.

The development comes amidst reports about several Gulf-based airlines showing interest in investing in Sri Lankan Airlines – the ailing national carrier of the island country. This would give them the right to sidestep the bilateral rights India has with their respective home countries, which has exhausted in most of the cases.

Devesh Agarwal, Bengaluru-based aviation analyst, said Malaysian and Indonesian airlines are using ingenious techniques to meet the demand on the sector which the Indian carriers are unfortunately unable to meet.

"There is tremendous demand for business and leisure travel between Malaysia and India. The airlines are just coming up with an ingenious way to deal with it," said Agarwal.

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• There is tremendous demand for business and leisure travel between Malaysia and India
   
• Malaysian as well as Indonesian airlines are using ingenious techniques to meet demand