Govt may review ground-handling policy for private airlines

The Government could take a relook at the ground-handling policy and consider setting up an international route authority to provide some relief to private airlines.
This emerged at an hour-long meeting that the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, had with the owners and operators of private sector airlines here on Saturday.
The meeting had been called in the background of the industry expecting to post a loss of about Rs 3,500 crore during the first six months of the current year.
Official sources indicated that the Prime Minister gave the delegation a patient hearing and told them that all their genuine grievances would be looked into, but no specific assurances were given.
The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) estimates that at the moment India has bilateral air services agreements with 108 countries and 72 foreign airlines operating to and from various cities in India. In comparison, there are currently only five Indian carriers operating flights abroad. The CAPA estimates that as of April 2010, Indian carriers were eligible to sell 711,356 seats per week on flights to various countries but they utilised only 170,914 of this.
Despite repeated fervent appeals of industry, the Government is said to have made it clear at the meeting that nothing would be done on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) issue.
26/11/11 Business Line

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Categories: airports Nov 2011, Foreign Nov 2011, Indian Aviation- In General Nov 2011