Thursday, September 18, 2014

New aviation policy soon, says Minister

Published in The Hindu Updated: September 17, 2014 03:23 IST

Civil Aviation Minister P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju said on Tuesday that a new aviation policy would be brought out soon to develop infrastructure and attract investments.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the 65 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of The Aeronautical Society of India (AeSI), Hyderabad chapter, he warned that there was every chance of some unused airports becoming a liability to the government. “There are 125 airports in the country out of which 75 are in use. There needs to be a strategy regarding the rest of the airports. Otherwise, they will end up as non-performing assets.” He ruled out the possibility of bailing out private airlines that were incurring huge losses.

On the industry’s demand for a reduction in tax on Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF), he said Andhra Pradesh was among the few States that had responded positively to the Union government’s appeal to lower the tax on ATF.

“Along with A.P., Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Punjab also want to reduce the ATF prices. We are pursuing the issue with other States as well. The States that see less aviation activity have responded to our request positively, whereas the States that witness heavy aviation activity are dragging their feet on this,” he remarked.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Domestic air passenger traffic rises 8.31% in August

Published in Business Today
Updated: September 16, 2014  | 18:21 IST

Domestic air passenger traffic increased by 8.31 percent in August to 56.97 lakh passengers - up from 52.60 lakh ferried in the corresponding month last year.
According to data furnished by the civil aviation ministry on Tuesday, on a month-on-month basis, there was an increase of over five per cent in the passenger traffic.
"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-Aug 2014 were 433.25 lakh as against 411.40 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year, thereby registering a growth of 5.31 per cent," the ministry said in a statement.
The data showed low-cost carrier IndiGo achieved the highest market share at 32.6 per cent followed by SpiceJet at 19.5 percent, Air India at 16.2 percent, Jet Airways at 16.1 per cent, Go Air at 10 per cent, and JetLite at 4 percent.
Regional carriers AirAsia India reported a market share of 0.06 per cent and Air Costa at 1.1 per cent.