Speeches and Remarks
November 3, 2005
Remarks by Ambassador David C. Mulford at the Inauguration of Continental Airlines' Non-stop Flight from Newark to New Delhi
Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi
November 1, 2005
As prepared for delivery
Mr. Smisek, thank you for inviting me to participate in Continental's inauguration ceremony. Chief Minister Dixit and Mayor Singh, I am pleased you are able to attend.
The U.S.-India aviation relationship has come of age with new air services expanding rapidly to cement the strong relationship between our two countries.
In today's world, aviation links are essential for connecting people and transporting cargo across the globe. In ancient times, civilization grew around waterways and roadways. Today's civilizations thrive around aviation links.
Continental is helping to fulfill this fabulous opportunity.
In April, U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta traveled to New Delhi to sign with Minister Patel the historic U.S.-India Open Skies Agreement. This was a landmark event in U.S.-India relations. It signaled an important new dimension of the U.S.-India relationship.
This Open Skies agreement removes virtually all significant restrictions and therefore offers many benefits to both sides. It provides for open routes, unrestricted capacity, and frequencies, and market-based pricing. It also provides opportunities for cooperative marketing arrangements, including bilateral code sharing with domestic Indian carriers. All-cargo carriers will now be permitted to operate to either country without necessarily originating shipments in their homeland.
This Agreement will catalyze new services, new partnerships, innovation, and lower prices - to the benefit of both our economies, our businesses, and our citizens.
If this route proves as successful for Continental as we believe it will, I hope Continental will consider other US-India direct connections.
Besides Open Skies, we have several other initiatives to strengthen the US-India aviation relationship:
- We have established an Aviation Cooperation Program, a unique public-private partnership designed to support and strengthen India's civil aviation system through technical assistance, job training, and personnel exchange programs. The participating American companies will fund the program, supported by a grant from the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.
- We are finalizing a regional Transportation and Trade Facilitation Conference for South Asian countries set in Mumbai next spring. This workshop and conference will provide a forum for business and government leaders to cooperate in improving transportation infrastructure in the region.
- Finally, we are working on a Memorandum of Agreement between the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and India's Ministry of Civil Aviation to expand technical assistance and training in air traffic management and control.
In conclusion, this is time of unprecedented optimism about the US-India relationship, and nowhere is the optimism greater than in the US-India civil aviation relationship.
This flight by Continental is a vivid example of how our economic, commercial, and people-to-people ties are expanding.
Thank you.