Press Trust of India / New Delhi Aug 10, 2009, 18:43 IST
Indian air carriers today asked the government to take speedy steps to reduce the burden of high sales tax on jet fuel and airport charges.
The request was made by the representatives of Federation of Indian Airlines during a meeting with Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel here.
Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal, Kingfisher Airlines Chairman and Managing Director Vijay Mallya, SpiceJet CEO Sanjay Agarwal, Indigo Chairman Rahul Bhatia and President Aditya Ghosh, GoAir MD Jeh Wadia and FIA Secretary General Anil Baijal participated in the meeting, in which Civil Aviation Secretary M M Nambiar was also present.
The meeting of the FIA delegation took place two days after Patel met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and briefed him on the issues plaguing the civil aviation sector.
At the meeting, the Prime Minister lent a "sympathetic" ear to the problems faced by the aviation industry.
FIA had earlier given a call for a strike to protest against high taxes on jet fuel and airport charges, but withdrew it later.
When all airlines were hiking fuel surcharge every day where was this govt sleeping? Did pvt players took approval from govt before hiking the fuel surcharge? If not, why should govt help them this time? From where the govt will get money to help these companies? Of course, from our tax. Isn't it great that first we pay heavy surcharge to these companies and now we pay for their losses? The management of the companies seems to be worse in managing the costs while expert in managing the govt and they always take them for ride. Can someone file case against govt of India for helping these private companies when they could not help us when fuel surcharge was raised almost on weekly basis.
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