Aviation heads meet in Mumbai

After meeting the Prime Minister earlier this week, airline chiefs are meeting again to make a stronger case to the government for a relief package. State Finance Ministers are expected to meet on June 16 to discuss a cut in sales tax on ATF. Earlier, Aviation Minister Praful Patel met the Prime Minister on June 11. But Praful Patel came back with nothing concrete.
The Finance Ministers of all the states will meet on June 16 to discuss a possible cut in sales tax on ATFs. All airline chiefs under a body called the ?Federation for Indian Aviation? are meeting today. That includes airline chiefs of commercial aviation in India. Siddhantha Sharma of SpiceJet is already here and so is Naresh Goyal.
We want to create a stronger case for a cut in sales tax on aviation, which is currently at 30% in most states. They want to create a strong lobby whereby they will decide which particular airline will decide to speak to which state and create a stronger case. An Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) is also expected to be formed to discuss bringing down prices on landing and parking fees as well as navigation fees.
Meanwhile, airline chiefs are also discussing what they can do by sharing common infrastructure facilities to bring down operating costs, such as sharing ground handling, hangar facilities for maintenance, engineering services and sharing routes.
13/06/08 Shivani Muthanna/CNBC-TV18/Moneycontrol.com

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Jun 2008