NEW DELHI: International airline body International Air Transport Association (IATA) has expressed its displeasure with the Indian government over 10% in airport and navigation charges and pointed out that such
decisions should have been taken after consulting all stakeholders as the current norms are as per international regulations.
Blair Cowles, regional director, safety and flight operations, IATA, wrote to civil aviation secretary RN Choubey on December 9, saying that the increase in these charges should have been done after consulting all stakeholders.
“As you would be well aware, Airport and ANS (Air Navigation Services) charges must be in line with the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) tenets of user-consultation, cost-relatedness, transparency, and non-discrimination. These core principles have been missing from the recent all around airport and ANS charges increases in India,” Blair Cowles wrote to Choubey.
The letter was made public by IATA on Thursday. These charges would apply to all aircraft in the country, besides airlines. They include route navigation, landing and parking charges. Foreign airlines will also have to shell out more money for flying over India.
Because of its geographic location, India gets a substantial amount of revenue in overflying rights and in foreign currency. All flights going from southeast Asia to the Middle East and Europe and back typically overfly India.
Airport charges make for about 7-10% of an airline’s costs, which could mean an increase of about 1-1.5% in airline costs due to the latest charges.
IATA said the value of aviation for India till 2014 was $72 billion per year or 3.4% of GDP. This is in addition to the 8 million jobs from the direct, indirect and induced benefits of tourism spending, infrastructure investment and trade.
“Increases in charges without proper consultation has the potential to rapidly erode competitive advantage and potentially jeopardize the growth prospect of the tourism industry and the wider economy of India,” IATA said in its letter.
The group said that there should be at least a four-month consultation window and notice of revision should be given to airlines and their representative organisations. It asked the ministry is charges could be deferred indefinitely.
However, India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) said these charges are used to fund air navigation services like installing hi-tech radars and equipment, which ultimately help bring more productivity to airline operations and save costs in the end.