Local carriers may lose parking slots on fleet cut

New Delhi: Domestic carriers such as Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines, which are reducing their fleet sizes, may also have to surrender aircraft parking slots at airports. As most of the metro airports are congested due to increase in air traffic, the move will help in allotting parking slots to other carriers, a senior official in the civil aviation ministry said.
Airport Authority of India (AAI) has proposed that airlines must surrender parking slots if they sell or lease their aircraft so that airports can accommodate other airlines, especially budget carriers, he said requesting anonymity.
In the past, the government had rejected proposals of several non-scheduled airlines to import aircraft due to unavailability of parking slots at Mumbai and Delhi airports. It allows an operator to import a jet only, if parking space for the aircraft at the airport is available. “Airlines, which dry lease their aircraft for 2-3 years, should surrender parking slots. In case the plane is on wet lease (including crew) for six months they should be allowed to retain the slots,” the official said.
While Jet Airways has leased out seven aircraft in the past few months to foreign airlines, Kingfisher has surrendered at least four jets to the lessor.
The proposal was discussed at the aircraft acquisition committee (AAC), that permits airlines to induct more number of aircraft depending on parking slot availability.
19/06/09 Nirbhay Kumar/Economic Times

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Categories: Airports Jun 2009