Ending the monopoly of government-owned airlines to fly abroad, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has initiated the process of allowing private carriers to launch overseas services by asking them to file their schedules and fares for operating to Colombo, official sources said on Tuesday.
The DGCA has asked Jet Airways and Air Sahara to submit their schedules and fares with them as well as the Airports Authority of India, with the former being allowed to operate 28 weekly flights to Colombo and the latter 21.
However, the operational details of the two airlines were still to be finalised and it would take another couple of days for them to actually begin their Sri Lanka operations, the sources said, indicating that the flights could start by the second week of March.
The decision to allow private operations to Sri Lanka comes in the backdrop of the agreement signed last October by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Sri Lankan counterpart Ranil Wickremesinghe during the latter's visit to India.
The Union Cabinet had ratified the agreement at its meeting in January.
The two major private airlines, which would compete with Indian Airlines and Sri Lankan Airlines on this sector, have already firmed up their Sri Lanka operations.
While Jet is planning to fly daily from Chennai to Colombo besides five days a week from Mumbai and Bangalore, Air Sahara plans to fly daily flights from Mumbai and Chennai to begin with.