Airliners-India.com

threekay76

NEW DELHI: The government on Wednesday announced a slew of measures to help the troubled aviation industry, which is expected to report losses of Rs 8,000 crore during this fiscal on account of rising fuel prices.

Government has permitted airlines to continue with their ground-handling operations till December this year, while it will start a new Performance Navigation System at Mumbai and Delhi Airport, from August 1 to ease congestion and bring down the air traffic delays by 50%.

It has also set the same deadline for appointment of Ombudsman by all airlines to address passenger complaints and problems. It has also formalised a 10 member group of airlines and airports operatorsâ€™ to discuss ways to reduce airport charges.

Civil aviation secretary Ashok Chawla told reporters here on Wednesday, "We are concerned over the all-time high fuel prices and the problems faced by the airline operators. We have asked them (airlines) for some more specific details, to prepare a representation that would be submitted by civil aviation minister, Praful Patel to prime minister Manmohan Singh and finance minister P Chidambaram, sometime next week. He will apprise them of the difficulties being faced by the industry and what kind of relief that could provided. Meanwhile, the airlines have assured us that they will try to cut operating costs and minimise any burden on passengers."

The airline operators raised the issue of new airport charges being levied by private airport developers that were not being imposed by the government owned Airports Authority of India earlier. Jet Airways CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer said, "We are trying to reduce costs at every level but four private airports - Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore - are adding new service charges and increasing our operations costs. We are in no position to absorb them as the high aviation fuel has already spiralled our operating costs and we will have to pass on the burden to passengers. We have sought government's intervention to restore some parity on airport charges to keep the aviation industry afloat."

Nimish

HAWK21M · Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:20 pm Post subject:

GOI could help by reducing the high parking & landing charges in the time being.
regds
MEL
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Think of the Brighter side !!!

threekay76 · Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 10:52 am Post subject:

NEW DELHI: Soaring jet fuel prices and its impact on airline companies have forced the civil aviation ministry to seek a bailout package for the industry. This package, to be placed before the prime minister on Wednesday, includes subsidies of over Rs 8,000 crore on jet fuel and lower taxes & duties. This comes even as several airline companies such as SpiceJet, JetLite and Kingfisher Airlines have started cutting down flights on short-haul sectors to save costs.

Civil aviation minister Praful Patel along with CEOs of airline companies will be meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday to deliberate on the possible bailout measures. While a duty cut on jet fuel is top on the agenda, other measures like a freeze on airport rentals, landing and parking fees and air traffic navigation charges are also expected to be considered. Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices have gone up by almost 40% in the past six months.

Fuel charges comprise almost 40% of the total operational cost. Most airline companies are facing huge financial problems with some of them even defaulting on fuel payments. The domestic aviation industry’s accumulated loss for 2008-09 is projected to be around Rs 8,000 crore.

“In the recent past, we have already reduced frequency on various short-haul sectors such as Bangalore-Chennai, Mumbai-Bhuj, Delhi-Chandigarh, Hyderabad-Bangalore and Ahmedabad-Jaipur. If the fuel price continues to go up, we would further pull down services on shorter routes. The way things are developing in the aviation sector the entire operation would have to be looked at differently,” JetLite COO Rajiv Gupta said.

“Domestic carriers are operating at high cost environment, which is not sustainable. As compared to other modes of transport such as road and railways which get fuel at subsidised rate, airlines have to pay very high price for fuel,” a government official said.

The official added, the government provides nearly 50% subsidy on diesel and about 30% on petrol, high tax and duties are levied on ATF. Domestic aviation sector has already started to witness a slowdown due to constant increase in airfare. If the government doesn’t take urgent step to deal with the situation, aviation sector would lose all its competitiveness over rail and road.

The losses are mainly attributed to soaring jet fuel price, infrastructural constraints and irrational airfare charged by low-cost airlines to fill the additional capacity.

The civil aviation ministry is likely to urge the PM to provide a budgetary support to oil companies to reduce jet fuel price to international levels. The proposed move is aimed at helping airlines maintain competitiveness over other modes of transport by charging reasonable airfare.

“To bring parity with other modes of transportation, we have been demanding declared goods status for ATF, thereby attracting an uniform tax of 3%,” the official said. ATF price in the country includes an excise duty of 8%, Custom duty of 5%, sales tax averaging 23% across the country, throughput charges levied by the airport operators and marketing margins of oil companies

saurabhm_101 · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 529 Location: Mumbai

as far as i know the govt is already down 29000 cr in oil subsidies... u think the PM will allow for another 8000 cr for ATF subsidies... lets see what happens....
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