HAL ground-handling gets no-frills lot’s goat

Bangalore: It’s one of the busiest airports in the country and every airline want to add more frequencies to Bangalore, but four carriers are not happy flying to this city.
Their unhappiness stems from the discriminatory policy on the ground- handling activities at the airport, which is operated by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).
These four airlines - SpiceJet Ltd, IndiGo, GoAir and Paramount Air - have to compulsorily utilise the ground-handling services of HAL/Indian Airlines joint working group (JWG). This turns out to be much costlier for them than self- handling or outsourcing.
With three of them being low-cost carriers (SpiceJet Ltd, IndiGo and GoAir), such a policy is detrimental to their business model and puts them at a huge disadvantage with other carriers (Jet Airways, Air Deccan, Kingfisher Air, Indian Airlines and Air Sahara), which are being allowed to self-handle or outsource it to third parties.
The carriers are paying out three times more fees for ground handling (that includes baggage loading and unloading, coaches, passenger buses and push back trucks) to HAL/Indian Airlines JWG than the average market rate.
And it is not just higher charges that is niggling them, they also have to suffer inconsistency in services.
06/03/07 Praveena Sharma/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Airports Mar 2007, Low Cost General Mar 2007