Qatar Airways to soon apply for domestic airlines in India, confirms Al Baker

Qatar Airways (QA) chief Akbar Al Baker has reiterated that plans by the Doha-based airlines to launch a domestic carrier in India was on track.

He said they would soon apply to start the airlines in India, which will be a full service carrier operating within the country, reported Times of India.

While Qatar Airways’ plans for a domestic airline in India is more than a year old, there has been several back and forth regarding the launch.

Two months ago, it said the new airline would involve at least 100 planes. Last month, it denied reports in the Indian media that it was considering a joint bid for Air India with IndiGo. 

Times of India reported that while the proposed airline will be fully-owned by Qatar entities, it will still have an Indian chairman and majority of board members will also be from India.

“Our lawyers have started working on our application. We’ll soon get some clarification from Indian government authorities to give us the exact direction on how we can start the process (and) formally apply for the (licence) sometime soon,” he told the Times of India in an exclusive chat.

It is understood that Qatar Airways will not have an Indian partner in the proposed airline.

“Indian foreign direct investment rules clearly state that a foreign entity can own 100% of a domestic carrier and we’re going by that rule. However, it’ll be a carrier in India that’ll be managed by Indians. The entire board, minus one or two people, will be all Indians including the chairman,” Al Baker said.

“If an (Indian) airline has more than 20 aircraft, it can operate outside India (as per Indian rules). However the airline that we’re launching will operate within India even beyond 20 aircraft,” Al Baker said.

India currently has three full service carriers (FSC) — Air India (AI), Jet and Vistara. When asked about AI is being divested with Vistara being a likely bidder, does Qatar see place for another FSC in India, he said, “India is such a big aviation market that if there’re 10 airlines, there’ll be stomach for more. India is a huge market which is under-served. You’ve airlines that aren’t so financially strong to be able to cater for this very large Indian population that want to travel by air.”