Agri and All Trade Chamber has said Bilateral Airport Services Agreement (BASA) was unnecessary for launching direct flights with ASEAN countries.

In a press release issued on Friday, Chamber’s founder-president S. Rethinavelu said Madurai, which had several famous landmarks, including Sri Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple, was missing in the open skies policy.

The Aviation Minister should immediately take measures to include Madurai in the ASEAN Open Skies Policy, also known as ASEAN Single Aviation Market (ASAM). ASEAN – India Air Connectivity Report observed that air services could facilitate movement of a larger number of tourists between India and 10 ASEAN countries — Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, he said.

To promote tourism, ASAM called for new routes for operation of more flights, particularly connecting Tier II or Tier III cities of India. The new routes might be negotiated with ASEAN under BASA or ASEAN-India Air Transport Agreement without any restriction.

In response to ASAM call, India had offered 18 additional points of tourism — Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bhubaneswar, Calicut, Cochin, Gaya, Goa, Guwahati, Jaipur, Khajuraho, Lucknow, Patna, Port Blair, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchi, Varanasi and Visakhapatnam.

Madurai, a prominent tourism city of India with the world famous Meenakshi temple and having connectivity to other pilgrimage and tourism centres such as Rameswaram, Dhanushkodi, Kanniyakumari, Courtallam, Kodaikanal, etc., was not included in the list, Mr. Rethinavelu said.

While most of the cities included had no potential to have connectivity with any ASEAN country, Khajuraho had only a domestic airport.

The list of Points of Call as on March 2023, released by Civil Aviation Department, included Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, mostly without BASA agreement.

Had Madurai been included in the list of tourism points, Madurai airport would have direct flights from most of these countries, operated by their own carriers.

Madurai airport was maintaining the top position among the 11 customs airports in the country in handling international passengers. In January, Madurai airport handled 20,273 passengers with only three international destinations. The Chamber pleaded for upgradation of Madurai airport as international airport.

The export of agri products, processed value-added agro foods, precision medical equipment and auto parts from South Tamil Nadu and ethnic, leisure, pilgrimage and medical tourism in this region were very much affected.

The Chamber’s delegation would meet the Civil Aviation Minister soon in New Delhi and had also appealed to Chief Minister M.K. Stalin to intervene with the Union government in this regard, the release added.