India, New Zealand sign MoU for boosting civil aviation ties

Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said the MoU has opened the possibilities of furthering of air transport between India and New Zealand

The governments of India and New Zealand signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Tuesday to boost cooperation in civil aviation that covers the scheduling of new routes, code share services, traffic rights and capacity entitlement.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and New Zealand minister Damien O’ Connor. (image posted by Jyotiraditya M Scindia on X (formerly Twitter))

Rajiv Bansal, secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, signed the MoU along with David Pine, the New Zealand high commissioner in the presence of Jyotiraditya M Scindia, minister for civil aviation of India and Damien O’ Connor who holds several ministry portfolios of New Zealand including ministry of trade and export growth and ministry for biosecurity, amongst others.

“Today is an important day for civil aviation air services between India and New Zealand. We have signed an MoU that has opened the possibilities of furthering of air transport between our two countries. The open sky policy has been put in place. The point of calls has been increased. We have also increased intermediate points,” Scindia said.

The MoU stated that the designated airline(s) of New Zealand may operate any number of services with any type of aircraft, with third and fourth freedom traffic rights to/from six points in India, namely New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.

Both the countries had signed an Air Services Agreement between New Zealand and India at Auckland on May 1, 2016. The Government of New Zealand and the Government of India reviewed the existing arrangements relating to air service between the two countries.

It also noted that the designated airlines of both parties may operate any number of all-cargo services with any type of aircraft with third, fourth and fifth freedom traffic rights to/from any points in the territory of the other party via any intermediate point(s) and to any beyond point(s) regardless of the points specified in the Route Schedule.