Airlines shun Raja Sansi airport 'coz landing charges too high

Chandigarh: After it became clear that a number of Airlines were ready to leave out Amritsar and shut shop, some MPs, Ministers and MLAs from Majha have called upon CM Parkash Singh Badal asking him to take up the issue with PM and the Union Civil Aviation and Commerce ministers to ensure that flights to Rajasansi airport at Amritsar were not discontinued.
Major row seems to be about the landing charges for flights in Amritsar which are heavy and should be lower than Delhi airport. The basic purpose of introducing international flights from Amritsar was to decongest Delhi airport as 29 per cent international air traffic at Delhi was from Punjab.
The Union Civil Aviation Ministry was charging Rs 1.54 lakh as landing charges for every flight in Amritsar from Singapore Airlines as compared to Rs 75,000 at Delhi airport. Jet Airways, they said, was shelling out Rs 94,000 as compared to Rs 69,000 in Delhi.
The nearly double charges in Amritsar were making flights from Rajasansi unviable for the airlines. The discontinuation of flights from Amritsar would hurt business, besides causing inconvenience to pilgrims coming to Harmandar Sahib and Vaishno Devi.
07/11/08 World Sikh News, USA

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Categories: Airports Nov 2008