Airlines may have to pay fine on flight delays

New Delhi: With the tight vigil on delayed flights showing no results, the civil aviation ministry is planning to turn a hard task master. It is working on a proposal to charge penalty on all airlines which operate late as it affects other airlines also.
This strong step also comes after the Delhi airport last month reported a 16% delay by all airlines for flights that took off between 6am and 8am.
According to sources, if the proposal is cleared, any domestic carrier which lands or takes off late might have to shell out 25% of its total earning from that particular flight.
In fact, senior officials of the civil aviation ministry are meeting the airlines representatives next week before a final decision is taken in this regard. Interestingly, following its tiff with the airlines on levying a congestion surcharge, the aviation ministry recently started a daily monitoring of actual flight movement schedules in metros such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. The ministry has recently taken into account a long-term complaint of passengers — most flights don’t stick to schedules.
The ministry and airlines have been at loggerheads on the issue of congestion ever since the latter started levying a congestion surcharge and refused to remove it despite the ministry’s repeated orders.
21/10/07 Raja Awasthi/Economic Times

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Categories: Airports Oct 2007, General Aviation Oct 2007