KOCHI: Union Civil Aviation minister, Vayalar Ravi, today urged the Kerala government to reduce the sales tax on aviation fuel, which was the highest in the country.
Speaking at a function here after inaugurating the corporate headquarters of Air India Express (AIE), the low cost subsidiary of Air India, which was shifted from Mumbai to kochi, the minister also wanted the Cochin International Airport ltd (CIAL) to management to reduce their parking and handling fee.
'The shifting of AIE headquarters should not be seen as an opporunity to charge more, but opportunity to help people of the state. Otherwise it would be difficult to operate the service', he said.
The decision to shift the AIE headquarters was a major step to help and improve the performance of Air India. The entire operation of AIE would be guided and operated from here.
Of the 25 lakh travellers in AIE, 14.5 Lakh are from Kerala, he said adding efforts would be made to introduce flight to Damam when the summer schedules are announced in March-April. AIE operates mainly to various gulf destinations besides Singapore and Dhaka.
An AIE press release said keeping in mind that kerala is the biggest market, the airline was shifting its corporate headquarters to kochi. The engineering Hangar at Thiruvananthapuram, which is expected to be operational by April this year, will be the first ever state-of-the art engineering Hangar to be set up in the state.
AIE today operates 189 flights on its network. AIE will commence operations to Dammam by next month. Similarly flights from Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram to Dammam are also on the anvil by May this year, the release said.