Ground Handling by Private Carriers Permitted

Since the end of last year, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has permitted Indian carriers in the private sector to carry out ground handling at airports for their flights in the domestic segment. This move is expected to provide a level-playing field to all operators in the sector. Ground-handling services include aircraft cleaning and servicing, loading and unloading of food and beverages as well as cargo and luggage handling at airports. The new rules, according to which domestic scheduled airline operators and helicopters can do ground-handling on their own, were notified in the official gazette on December 20, 2017. Besides, a ground-handling agency, with foreign ownership of 50 per cent or more of its paid-up capital, has been barred from carrying out ground handling at civil enclaves or joint user defence airfields, it said.

The new norms also stipulate that aerodromes clocking ten million passengers per annum or more, are required to have three ground handling agencies, including that of the airport operator/its joint venture (JV)/its wholly-owned subsidiary or a JV or a subsidiary of Air India or any other agency appointed through a bidding process. However, airports with less than ten million passengers can hire up to three agencies at the most for carrying out ground handling operations.