The government will start negotiations with the US to increase the number of flights between the two countries. The move will pave the way for Indian private carriers to fly to the US.

"The negotiations will start early next year. We expect them to be fruitful," Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said on Wednesday in New Delhi.

Under the present agreement, Air-India is allowed to fly to four US cities, New York, Newark, Chicago and Los Angeles. According to government sources, the government is likely to negotiate for more cities that Indian carriers can fly to. Besides, the government will also demand for increased frequency.

Since the air travel agreement between the two countries is governed by an open sky policy, the operations are determined by the number of cities the carriers will operate and not the number of flights.

Sources also said private airlines would be offered air services capacity left unused by state-run carriers. According to sources, priority will be given to Air-India and the unused capacity will be offered to Indian Airlines.

"In case there is still some capacity left, domestic private carriers will be allowed to utilise it," said an official.

Besides, the government is also likely to stipulate the minimum number of years of operations required for an Indian carrier to fly on international routes to five years.  The present norms require airlines to operate for three years to fly overseas.

Meanwhile, Patel also said in order to enhance the safety of aircraft operation, not only the infrastructure at the airports was being improved and augmented but steps were also being taken to upgrade the air navigation facilities.

Observing that the modernisation and restructuring of major airports has started with Delhi and Mumbai airports, Patel said large investments of the order of Rs 25,000 crore (Rs 250 billion) would be needed for this purpose.

This exercise would be continued and other metro and non-metro airports would be modernised and restructured, he said.

"New airports in the private sector were also being developed at Bangalore and Hyderabad to meet the traffic growth requirements of these cities," the minister said.

"The domestic traffic was increasing at the rate of more than 20 per cent per annum and international traffic to and from India was increasing at the rate of nearly 17 per cent per annum. Efforts were being made to develop infrastructure to meet this high growth of traffic," Patel said.

Air agreement

• At present, Air-India is allowed to fly to four US cities, New York, Newark, Chicago and Los Angeles
• According to the air travel agreement between the two countries, operations are determined by the number of cities the carriers will operate and not the number of flights