Information Region) by flying direct from eg Bombay/
Colombo to Perth, but this would not be the preferred
routeing for all their services and would incur extra
costs. The Indian attitude would then be crucial.
INDIA
5
A considerable volume of traffic is carried daily from
London to India (Bombay) on the UK/Australia service.
BA are reasonably confident that they would be able to make
alternative arrangements for this en route to Hong Kong or
Singapore or by turn round services (London-Bombay-London).
We would not want to cut Air India's reciprocal services
with the UK. India would keep her fifth freedom rights
London and New York but we would give up UK fifth freedom
rights between between India and Australia. To this extent India would
gain vis a vis the UK under the new arrangement. On the
other hand the Australians might find it considerably more difficult to satisfy the Indians. Admittedly there is little
true origin and destination traffic between India and
Australia; and the Australians might be prepared to allow
Air India to serve the route alone. But the new arrangement
would involve a substantial cut in frequency on the India/
Australia Sector (from 16 to one service a week). There
is a risk that the Indians would retaliate against
Australia, eg by denying Qantas the right to make technical
stops on the sub-continent. Australia is considering
ways of making such cuts more palatable by eg helping
to encourage the development of Australian tourism in
India. But they have not yet worked out how best to achieve
this.