The Indian government is looking into at India's air traffic lights with Austria and Switzerland. It has been four years for their national carriers being acquired by Lufthansa. The review is aimed to coax the German airline into inducting Air India into a powerful global airline alliance.

According to two senior aviation ministry officials, the civil aviation ministry has checked with its external affairs counterpart if the effective controls of Swiss and Austrian Airlines lie within their own nationals. Both the officials agreed to share the information on the condition of anonymity.

The first official said that they are waiting for their opinion before making proceedings to review the bilaterals.

There are separate air traffic arrangements for India, called as Air Service Agreements or bilateral' in aviation parlance, with Switzerland, Austria and Germany, among other nations.

Majority stakes bought by Lufthansa in Austrian and Swiss in 2005 and 2008, which automatically helped it win the flying rights allotted to these carriers.

However, the second official said that benefits from the bilaterals must be availed by the nationals of Austria and Switzerland, instead of Lufthansa. He added, "If we find that Lufthansa controls these airlines, the bilaterals will be affected".