Aviation's ground handling crisis

New Delhi: The Air India crisis continues and the next one, likely to blow up over the next few weeks, relates to the government policy on ground handling, a policy which has been kept in abeyance for two years thanks to the opposition of aviation companies. Aviation Minister Praful Patel, however, says the policy is likely to be tweaked and implemented soon.
So far, a host of manpower companies have doubled up as ground handlers offering services to private airlines — though the quality wasn’t always the best, the costs were competitive. And there was Air India offering better services but at a steeper rate. All this, however, changed when the government decided it would privatise the major airports — the logic then was that ground handling facilities needed to be upgraded to international levels.
How is ground handling divided
Passenger or terminal services: This is the front-end service which includes, among other things, check-in counters, arrivals, customer services, lost baggage, airline lounges and transfers
Airside services: These include aircraft guidance, towing, low-grade maintenance, water and lavatory drainage, ground power, air conditioning, baggage handling, refuelling, aircraft dispatch and staff transport, cabin services like cleaning, among others
For the country’s six major airports as well as 35 non-metro airports, it was decided that there would be only a maximum of three operators who would provide ground handling — the airport operator (for example, DIAL in Delhi), Air India or its joint venture, and an independent ground handling company selected through competitive bidding by the airport operator (in Delhi’s case, DIAL). And, the policy envisaged, airlines would have no option but to use one of these three firms.
22/08/09 Surajeet Das Gupta/Business Standard

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Categories: Airports Aug 2009