Thursday, April 14 2005 13:24 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: India and the US today (Apr 14, 2005) signed a landmark agreement allowing unrestricted number of airlines to mount any number of flights to any point in each other's territory.

The historic agreement was signed by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and US Transportation Secretary Norman Y Mineta in New Delhi.

The Union Cabinet, presided by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, had last night (Apr 13, 2005) given its nod for replacing the 1956 Air Services Agreement with the new one according to which Air India and other carriers will have additional ports of call other than existing ones like Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Newark (New Jersey).

Similarly, American carriers will also be able to have direct operations to additional cities in India.

Currently, Indian carriers operate 28 flights a week to the US, which has 14 flights.

The new accord also seeks to remove the earlier restriction of code-share rights to any five points in the respective territories of both countries.

It proposes to eliminate all existing restrictions on Fifth Freedom traffic through intermediate points and provides for greater operational flexibility.

A special provision relating to safety has been added in the new agreement.