Ground handling status quo

New Delhi: The cabinet committee on security today put on hold a new ground handling policy in airports that was to be brought in from the New Year as it feared job losses.
It also decided to tweak the policy, which will now take effect from 2011, by allowing airlines to handle baggage within a terminal building.
The Congress-led government had earlier decided to limit the number of ground handling agencies to three per airport. The decision to limit ground handlers, taken at the insistence of the home ministry, was meant to limit the number of people in the tarmac side of an airport, which is the area where planes land and park.
Under the new rules, airlines will handle cargo on the terminal side, but on the tarmac there will only be three ground handling agencies.
However, airlines under the Federation of Indian Airlines complained that this would lead to job losses.
Officials said over 50,000 people employed by foreign and domestic airlines at the Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad airports risked losing their jobs.
Air India unions, representing 20,000 ground handlers, had also threatened to go on strike to oppose the government’s decision to set up a ground handling joint venture between Air India and Singapore Airport Terminal Services.
30/12/09 Jayanta Roy Chowdhury/The Telegraph

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Categories: Airports Dec 2009