Implement new ground ops policy by July 1: DGCA

Mumbai: The Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has set July 1 as the last date for complete implementation of the new ground-handling
policy at Mumbai and Delhi airports. It means that no airline will be allowed to do ground-handling operations itself seven months from now.
The new policy has come into effect from January 1 but the government has not been pushing for its implementation. Three private ventures have been chosen to do the ground-handling job in Mumbai. These are Celebi (a Turkish company) and NAS (a Kuwaiti company); Menzies (an European firm) and Cambata Aviation (an Indian company) and NACIL and SATS (both Singapore-based firms).
The DGCA's 2007 circular said airlines would have to outsource ground-handling work to any of the three companies-which could include foreign ones-chosen by the airport operator concerned. Multiple agencies do ground-handling at Indian airports and the policy aims to limit the number of operators to three for security reasons.
At Mumbai, though a number of airlines continue to do self-handling, others have done away with most of their employees and outsourced the job, as demanded by the new policy, to a private ground-handling agency appointed by the airport operator. One foreign airline's Mumbai airport office currently has only 10 of its 30-odd employees on the payrolls.
07/01/09 Manju V/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jan 2009