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BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT
21 June, 2005: After a slew of rock-bottom price offerings by India’s budget airliners, which stunned aviation experts and defied conventional logic, the country’s aviation scenario is witnessing mad scramble to rope in more and more passengers for air travel.
The British Airways seems to believe in the dictum `catch them young’. BA is now offering special fare for students traveling to the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. The airline didn’t just stop there. It also announced that students who opt for the special fare scheme would be offered an additional 32 kilograms of baggage when they are traveling to these destinations. This means the total free baggage would come to around 55 kilograms. The scheme is valid from July 1 to October 31.
Moreover, with an eye on the students seeking to travel to these destinations from other than metros, the BA has entered to a pact with domestic airliner Air Sahara to provide connection seats.
As per available statistics, India surpassed China in the number of students it sends to US in the academic year 2001/2.
According to a report, Indian students in the US was 66,836 in that academic year, a jump of 22% from the previous year. It also meant that out of the hundred international students in US at that time, 12 were Indians. The largest number of Indian students study in Texas. Mathematics and computer sciences being the key areas in which Indians show enormous interest.
South Korea, Japan, Taiwan , Canada , Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia and Thailand are the other countries from where students seek higher education in the US. The largest concentration of foreign students in the US is in New York, as per 2001 estimates.
As far as the UK is concerned, it has put in a place an unwritten polcy of seeking more students from India, as early as in 2000. Britain was earlier a much-sought after destination, but after new avenues opened in other countries like Honk Kong, China and even Cyprus, the British authorities found out that the number of Indian students was fast depleting. Rising education fee was one of reasons sited for the decline in number of students to the UK.
An estimated 20 million Indians (Not the latest figure), including Non Resident Indians and People of Indian Origin, live abroad. Meanwhile, the Indian government is plnning to issue smart cards, an electronic emigration card, to protect vulnerable workers abroad from exploitation. The Ministry of Overseas affairs is also mulling rating recruitment agencies in India.
BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT
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