Civil Aviation Minister to meet airline CEOs tomorrow

Civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati is set to meet chief executive officers of airlines in a meeting tomorrow to discuss issues pertaining to the growth of the civil aviation sector in India.

CEOs from SpiceJet, IndiGo, GoAir, Air India, Jet Airways, Vistara and AirAsia India are expected to attend this meeting.

CEOs are expected to discuss issues related to high operating costs for a domestic airline, particularly due to the high tax structure on ATF and steep airport charges levied across different states in the country. India is among the countries where tax on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) is among the highest in the world. ATF accounts for almost half of an airline's operating costs.

Airlines are also expected to raise their concern about the revised draft guidelines which force these loss making carriers to fly to the country's remote and regional areas where flights are simply unviable.

A senior official in the ministry also said the minister and the airlines are also likely to examine the abolition of the 5/20 rule at the meeting tomorrow. The 5/20 rule mandates that any Indian airline must have completed five years of domestic operation and must have a fleet of 20 aircraft to become eligible to fly abroad.

India is the only country to have such a rule. Raju has said several times in the past that there is little rationale for the 5/20 rule to continue and he is widely expected to lift the restrictions rule soon. The immediate beneficiaries of such a move would be the two new Tata airlines - AirAsia India and Vistara - which can begin flying overseas.