Policy changes needed urgently to save Indian aviation sector: Pilots’ federation

Guwahati, Dec 18: The Government must change its policies for the survival of the aviation sector in India, President of the Federation of Indian Pilots, Capt CS Randhawa said. He also said that with the privatisation of major airports, the parking and landing fees increased considerably, which added to the burden of the airlines.

In an interview with The Assam Tribune, Capt Randhawa expressed the view that it is becoming very challenging for the airlines to operate under the present circumstances, and a number of airlines have already closed down. It may be mentioned here that airlines like Jet Airways, Go Air, Kingfisher Airlines, etc have closed down as they could not deal with the growing operational costs.

Capt Randhawa pointed out that fuel cost, parking charge, navigation tax, etc, are increasing sharply and the airlines have to manage other costs like salaries of pilots, air crew, ground staff, etc.

With the privatisation of the airports, the parking and landing costs increased by four to five times, which put an additional load on the airlines. The Government will have to change its policies for the airlines to survive, he added.

Capt Randhawa revealed that Indigo Airlines now has a 67 per cent share of the Indian civil aviation sector. He pointed out that when several airlines went down, Indigo Airlines managed to procure most of the planes used by those operators.

He expressed the view that other operators like Air India should have been able to procure some planes of the airlines which were closed down, but they failed to do so, which led to a monopoly of Indigo Airlines in the civil aviation sector.

Moreover, Indigo Airlines managed to earn profit because the company forced the ground, airport staff, etc, to work overtime.

Replying to a question whether Indigo Airlines forced pilots to operate overtime, Capt Randhawa said that it is not possible to force pilots to work more than the stipulated time frame. However, Indigo Airlines did not follow the rules regarding ground staff.

Commenting on the recent crisis in the civil aviation sector, Capt Randhawa said that it happened because of the monopoly of Indigo Airlines. He is of the view that the crisis was pre-planned.

“You see, the crisis started on December 2 and reached its peak on December 5 when 1,500 Indigo flights were cancelled. The planes were on the ground. The pilots were available. Then why were planes not in the air but on the ground? According to information available, there was a software update for Indigo Airlines that was going on. The company should have made alternative arrangements or even strengthened the manual operation system before going for a software update to prevent the crisis,” he added.

Replying to a question about whether foreign airlines can be allowed to operate in the Indian skies, Capt Randhawa said that, as per law, 49 per cent foreign direct investment is possible. But some Indian companies will have to invest 51 per cent.

He pointed out that major companies of the country, like Reliance, Adani Group, etc, still have not shown interest in the civil aviation sector.

It is unlikely that major Indian companies will show interest in this sector if the Government does not change its policies and bring down the taxes to make the industry economically viable, he added.