Indian Airlines has asked the civil aviation ministry to redistribute domestic routes between itself and Air-India.

Indian Airlines feels that the ministry's exercise of rationalising the two national carriers' operations on the Gulf and Southeast Asia routes is biased towards Air-India.

The domestic carrier has also asked for a distribution of revenue from commercial agreements, which solely goes to Air-India now.

Indian Airlines has said that it should be allowed to increase the frequency of its flights on the Delhi-Singapore, Chennai-Singapore, Delhi-Dubai and Chennai-Dubai sectors. The airlines also wants the freedom to increase capacity freely on all the city pairs.

As per the ministry directive, Air-India can operate all direct flights to Singapore, while Indian Airlines can fly from Bangalore, Chennai and can operate hopping flights via Bangkok. Indian Airlines is also of the opinion that Air-India has got a better deal on the Dubai sector.

Indian Airlines' protest has led the ministry to delay its decision on route rationalisation. The ministry has also set up a committee to re-work the schedule and is hoping to resolve all issues and implement a new schedule by summer.

Indian Airlines also wants to extend its service to Hong Kong. At present, Air-India has been given the rights to fly there.

While Air-India can operate hopping flights to Japan via Bangkok, Indian Airlines has been granted rights to fly terminator flights to Bangkok.

On the lucrative Malaysia sector, which sees passenger load factors of 70 per cent in the peak season, Air-India has rights to fly from all destinations in India, but Indian Airlines has been restricted to fly only from Chennai.