June 24, 2007	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 08, 1428

KUWAIT CITY, June 23: Kuwait has threatened to stop all its flights to India from July 1 in an apparent protest against New Delhi’s alleged backtracking of its commitments in the bilateral aviation agreement between both countries.

Unless resolved, the decision could develop into a serious diplomatic crisis affecting the bilateral relations between the two countries and disrupting the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers during this peak summer season.

According to the Arabic daily Al Watan, the threat has been made by the civil aviation authorities in protest against the Airports Authority of India (AAI)’s denial of a Kuwaiti request to increase the weekly seat capacities of Kuwait Airways Corporation (KAC) and Jazeera Airways between Kuwait and India.

According to sources, both Kuwait and Indian governments are allotted 8,000 seats each to carry passengers to and fro every week but due to the increasing number of passengers, Kuwaiti authorities requested their Indian counterparts to increase the capacity to 12,000 per week.

The report added the request was not honoured and irked by the Indian government’s attitude of allegedly following different policies with different airliners; Kuwait’s top-level officials took the decision to stop all flights by state-owned carriers.

Considering the population of Indians in Kuwait, which is nearly 520,000, “8,000 seats per week were not sufficient,” added sources.

If the decision comes into effect, thousands of passengers will be forced to change their reservations to other airlines and “since it is a peak season, many passengers may not even get reservations,” noted sources.