Aviation Cooperation Between India and New Zealand

Context:-

• A MoU ( Memorandum of Understanding) has been signed between India and New Zealand to boost cooperation in the sector of civil aviation.
• Further, a meeting was held between the Ministry of Agriculture of both the countries. In that meeting, they reaffirmed their commitment for collaboration to boost Agriculture. They also invited India to join the Global Research Alliance(GRA).

The Key Highlights of MoU:-

• The Memorandum of Understanding is meant mainly to strengthen the partnership of Aviation between India and New Zealand.
• In civil aviation, the co-operation includes
  • Scheduling new routes
  • Codeshare services
  • Traffic rights
  • Capacity entitlement.
• The privilege of exercising the third and fourth freedom traffic rights are being enjoyed by both the country India & New Zealand. It enable them to conduct unlimited services using any type of aircraft.
  • Indian airlines can Operate Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and 3 additional points in New Zealand, as per the Government of the Republic of India.
  • Similarly, New Zealand’s airlines can operate to/from six destinations in India.
• Unlimited cargo services are allowed for both the countries and can freely operate using any type of aircraft.
• They will also have the right to stop at any intermediate points and can extend their operation to destinations beyond without any restrictions or being restricted by specified route points.

Freedom Traffic Rights:-

• With the International agreements or treaties, the rights granted to airlines to operate their air services between countries is referred to as freedom traffic rights.
• As per these rights, it outlines the extent to which the airlines can fly in and out of a country which shall include, number of flights, no of routes and no of destinations they can serve.
• The different levels of freedoms of traffic rights are ranging from the First Freedom to the ninth Freedom. The First Freedom being the right to overfly a country without landing and the ninth freedom being the cabotage, which allows any foreign airlines to operate domestic flights within another country.
• During Bilateral or multilateral air service agreement between the countries, the rights are negotiated and agreed upon.

Conclusion:-

The governments of India and The government of New Zealand signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) recently which shall boost International cooperation in civil aviation and the same is covering the scheduling of new routes of flights, code share services, traffic rights & capacity entitlement.

Download as PDF