NEW DELHI: Developers of new airports will have certainty on the aircraft landing and parking fees they can levy, as the government has decided to fix the rates before inviting bids.
The decision will help attract foreign investment as it will eliminate a major regulatory uncertainty that discouraged investors to vie for airport projects in India, aviation industry experts said. Airline executives also welcomed it, saying they will have more visibility on a key recurring cost.
Currently, the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) decides the fees at privately run airports. Airport operators and airlines often have complained about tariffs and at least in one instance the Supreme Court had to intervene to implement a rate revision.
“We have the approval from the Union Cabinet to amend the AERA Act, which will allow us to decide charges prior to the bidding of the airport project,” said a senior aviation ministry official.
The ministry is still working on the procedures to fix the fees in the pre-bid stage, he said.
The proposed rule will be prospective in nature, and AERA will continue to decide tariffs at airports that are currently in operation or where the projects have already been awarded, the official said.
New airports at Jewar in Greater Noida and Pune are likely to be among the first to be bid out under the proposed rule.
The decision will make the airports sector attractive to foreign investors, said Satyan Nayar, secretary-general of the Association of Private Airport Operators.
Foreign investors see regulatory uncertainty as the biggest challenge in the Indian market, he said, adding: “Fixing tariff prior to bids would take care of regulatory uncertainty andhelp give a boost to foreign investments in the airports sector in India.” About $45 billion is estimated to be required to develop airport infrastructure in the country, Nayar said. “A substantial percentage (of this) will come through foreign investments.”
Airlines said bidding for airports on tariffs would bring relief for passengers and airlines. “This would be a good move as it would bring respite from sudden increase in charges at private airports. However, the government should ensure that the charges keep falling every year,” said an airline representative.
Airlines and passenger bodies have often criticised the charges at Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru airports as high. Airport tariffs are fixed by AERA for a duration of five years, known as the control period. In Delhi, the airport operator moved the AERA appellate authority against AERA’s order asking it to cut the charges from 2014, claiming that it would result in losses. The revision was finally implemented in 2017 on a Supreme Court order, after national carrier Air India petitioned it.
State-run Airports Authority of India have issued “Letter of Awards” for 90 proposals involving around 325 regional connectivity routes which were received under the second round of the Udan scheme
NEW DELHI: The government today awarded contracts to 15 firms to operate flight and chopper services under the second round of its air regional connectivity “Udan” scheme.
State-run Airports Authority of India (AAI), the implementing agency of the scheme, issued “Letter of Awards” for 90 proposals involving around 325 regional connectivity routes which were received under the second round of RCS-Udan.
Subsequently, under the second phase, flight operations are expected to connect destinations like Kargil, Darbhanga, Pakyong (Gangtok) and Cooch Behar.
“Udan-II has addressed the problem of (air connectivity in) difficult areas (which are) basically areas with hilly tracks, where road connectivity is low or probably has no train connectivity,” Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju said at an event held here.
“We will connect 29 unserved airports, 13 underserved airports to 36 served airports and 31 helipads. This is the first time that helicopter (services) are coming under Udan,” he said.
According to the minister, Udan-II will connect 43 airports and helipads in priority sectors like the north-east and the hill states.
Mr Raju said 17 applicants, including airline and chopper companies, had sent their proposals for a total of 502 routes in the second phase of the scheme. In total, 73 unserved or underserved airports and helipads will be provided services through the second phase.
The ministry awarded new routes to SpiceJet, IndiGo, Jet Airways, Turbo Megha Airways and Pawan Hans, among others.
SpiceJet Chairman and Managing Director Ajay Singh said, “We see tremendous potential in the routes that we have been awarded today and look forward to beginning operations very soon.”
SpiceJet has been awarded 17 proposals and 20 new sectors under the second round of bidding.
New Delhi: The two pilots who fought in the cockpit of a Jet Airways London-Mumbai flight of January 1 will no longer be able to operate as pilots for any airline for five years. In an unprecedented action, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has suspended their flying licences for five years for endangering safety. The cockpit was left unmanned more than once during the fight when the co-pilot went out to bring back the lady commander who was sobbing in the galley and possibly afraid of going back to fly with him.
“DGCA has investigated the occurrence. Keeping in view serious safety lapses endangering the safety of aircraft operations, DGCA has suspended the privileges of license of the both the involved pilots for a period of five years,” DGCA chief B S Bhullar told.
The aircraft on which the fight was witnessed had 324 passenegers and 14 crew members.The regulatory action comes a fortnight after Jet sacked these two pilots. Now with the DGCA suspending their Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) for five years, they cannot even get a job as pilots in any other airline.
Flight 9W 119 of January 1 was operated by two commanders. Jet’s senior most Boeing 777 commander was flying as co-pilot and his deputy was the commander of this flight. The “co-pilot” had allegedly slapped the lady commander and then the cockpit was left unmanned on two occasions when he went out to bring her back in. Soon after the incident was reported, the DGCA had suspended the co-pilot’s flying licence. Later Jet had sacked the pilots.
Officials said the charges for net connection might range from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 for thirty minutes to an hour as per international standards
Airlines have to pay service providers like Inmarsat and others a hefty sum to activate in-flight net connectivity
CHENNAI: Travellers could soon be able to post a selfie on social media while on board a plane, but may have to shell out at least 20-30{f32dc76102757d19df9131cdc28115d9989856b4a44e5e08e1d600a023141750} of the fare to avail of in-flight data connectivity.
Airlines are considering options to introduce the facility following a Trai order permitting in-flight voice and data connectivity+ . The move may help airlines add value to services for business class travellers on domestic and international routes. It may not be an option for low-cost carriers.
Officials said the charges for in-flight net connectivity would range from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 for thirty minutes to an hour, according to international standards and taking into account the charges levied by service providers for slots on satellites. Airlines have to pay service providers like Inmarsat and others a hefty sum to activate inflight net connectivity.
With advance booking fares starting from Rs 1,200 to Rs 2,500 on short domestic routes, in-flight internet connectivity may be too expensive for passengers and airlines in the domestic sector.
An airline official said that Trai’s order permitting in-flight net connection would be an advantage for flights that traverse the peninsula on intercontinental routes. These flights do not have to switch off the Wi-Fi when in Indian airspace, he added.
“We are discussing the feasibility of having the facility on domestic flights. The cost and demand may have to be factored in before taking a decision,” said an official of a private airline. Airlines will have to install antennae on planes based on how they decide to receive and send the signals, either over mobile towers on the ground or over satellites.
Frequent travellers say that except for a handful of business travellers, there are no takers for in-flight internet even on international routes.
Air Passengers Association of India national president D Sudhakara Reddy said, “The in-flight data connectivity may be useful on longhaul flights. But I have hardly seen anyone use it or ask for it on international routes. It may be good during an emergency. Going by the international experience of passengers, it may not be viable for low-cost carriers.”
Some airlines allow passengers to use Wi-Fi free of charge for WhatsApp and other messenger services which may not need much bandwidth. Lufthansa, Emirates, British Airways and Delta are among the airlines that offer the service on international routes.
There are only two reasons, reckons a former captain who flew choppers of the Indian Air Force, that any investigation into a helicopter crash in the country can come up with: pilot error or bad weather.
“90{f32dc76102757d19df9131cdc28115d9989856b4a44e5e08e1d600a023141750} of the time, the hapless pilot is crucified,” says Sharma (name changed on request). “It’s amusing to know that this time a ‘sabotage’ balloon is being floated,” he fumes, alluding to the crash involving an ill-fated chopper of Pawan Hans off the coast of Mumbai on January 13, killing all seven on board.
Though preliminary investigation hint at sabotage — the possibility of flammable material in the cargo — nothing tangible is likely to come of it. Reason: 16 of the 21 crashes of the national carrier have been attributed to pilot error and the rest to bad weather.
“Blood is on their hands,” alleges Sharma, who worked for 16 years in India’s biggest helicopter company, Pawan Hans, in which the government owns 51{f32dc76102757d19df9131cdc28115d9989856b4a44e5e08e1d600a023141750} and the rest held by state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.
“No heads would roll, and Pawan Hans will remain a flying coffin,” laments the former pilot, who worked with the Air Force for over a decade. The most damning thing about the latest tragedy, he points out, is the fact that the chopper was on its first off-shore sortie after a two-week-long routine ‘T’ inspection, which is carried out after completing 600 hours of flying.
“Imagine a chopper crashing after coming straight from servicing.”
Troubled History Pawan Hans’ killer past is graphic: 67 deaths in 21 crashes since 1990. Every crash reinforces its tainted image.
“Pawan Hans is a dangerous company,” says aviation expert Captain Mohan Ranganathan, who alleges that investigations after crashes involve cover-ups and nobody is held accountable. The chopper company is run by the government, which controls the aviation regulator DGCA.
“Any other operator, anywhere in the world, would have lost the license to operate and the officials would have been sent behind bars,” says Ranganathan, “But not in India.”
The carrier’s troubled history, point out experts, has a lot to do with its wretched beginning in October 1985, when it was formed as the Helicopter Corporation of India. Most of the two-dozen British Westlands inducted into its fleet started showing signs of trouble: engine problems, oil leakages and faulty sensors. Three years later, the company recorded its first crash in July 1988.
A Westland crashed in Jammu and Kashmir, killing all seven occupants. A month later, a Dauphin flew into the sea, killing eight passengers and two pilots. In February 1989, another chopper crashed. Next month, government removed 53 defective engines from the Westlands. In May, 10 more were removed prematurely.
In a 2015 corporate presentation by Pawan Hans, the company admitted to weaknesses it has been grappling with, be it industrial relation problems leading to business shifting to rivals or inability to adopt flexible management policies as it is a PSU. The list highlighted and gave an official stamp to all the ills that experts had been repeatedly pointing out over the last two decades. The presentation also underlined potential threats faced by the national carrier such as ageing fleet and losing market share.
Blame Game Though the disease was diagnosed, nothing was done to fix the bug. But that has been a grim tradition. Pawan Hans ignored warnings from the Kaushik Committee report of 1991 and again when the committee revisited its recommendations in 2005.
In most of the cases where the investigations are over, the report pointed out, pilots are blamed for the accidents, a conclusion easily drawn from the available evidence. The accountability of the operator is never assigned, even indirectly. The operating conditions and other external factors are also not considered, the report observed.
While maintaining that suspecting the capability of the pilot and blaming him for the accident may not be incorrect, the report emphasised that the operator cannot evade responsibility for not ensuring proper conduct of recurrent training, maintenance of proficiency and competency of the pilot for the task. It is possible that commercial interest may have forced an operator to overlook or circumvent rules, directly affecting flight safety, a major factor in an accident, but may not be detectable during an investigation.
“Operators need to follow the laid-down rules judiciously and be conscientious of their responsibilities and accountability,” the Kaushik Committee report concluded. “Since it is a sarkari company, it’s debatable whether DGCA has the flexibility to be able to exercise adequate safety oversight authority over Pawan Hans,” says Shakti Lumba, aviation industry veteran and former vice-president of Air India and IndiGo.
Since the company was never structured as an aviation company catering to civilian needs, public safety may not have been as important a criterion as it would be for an airline. Also, that the organisation is headed by an IAS officer and not a technocrat might have an impact on the way Pawan Hans works.
Lumba alleges that apart from the fact that an IAS officer doesn’t have any knowledge or expertise on aviation, which could lead him to be more mission-oriented, cost cutting and a sharp focus on profit might put safety oversight or culture on the backburner.
“Most of the IAS ‘babus’ come for a picnic at PSUs and go back after a couple of years and have nil accountability,” he says. Whether their tenure in the PSU is successful or not has little effect on their career path, he adds.
Lumba also rubbishes the theory of rotatory wing aircraft (helicopters) being less mechanically reliable than fixed wing aircraft due to their complexity. “It doesn’t mean they are unsafe. Choppers are being successfully used globally,” he says, adding that Pawan Hans’ dismal safety record springs from aging fleet, high cost of maintenance and wear and tear of the choppers.
A serving Pawan Hans pilot, requesting anonymity, alleges another cardinal sin committed by the company: cost cutting at the cost of maintenance. While revenue dipped by Rs 77 crore between 2014-15 and 2015-16, profit fell by just Rs 2 crore. “How are they maintaining profitability when topline has been eroding?” he asks.
The company’s balance sheet of the last five years lights up another grim statistics: maintenance as a percentage of total expenditure in 2014-15 is same as what it was in 2011-12 — 25{f32dc76102757d19df9131cdc28115d9989856b4a44e5e08e1d600a023141750}. While in FY 2011-12, it stood at Rs 108.57 crore, for 2014-15 fiscal, it spent Rs 119.88 crore: a paltry increase of over Rs 10 crore in three years.
“Look at the ageing fleet of Pawan Hans. The amount spent is barely enough to keep the fleet healthy,” adds the Pawan Hans pilot.
Security Slip-ups A dip in the headcount might have also helped the company in maintaining profit: employee strength was 799 in March 2016 from 869 in fiscal 2015. Though Pawan Hans maintains that it has a bloated headcount — 20 employees per helicopter, way above global industry average of 5-6 employees per helicopter — many serving officials contend that there is widespread discontentment among pilots and engineers due to huge salary disparity between what they and pilots in private airlines draw.
“Which airline company has flight allowance for every trip?” asks another former Pawan Hans pilot. “You want the pilots to do the quantum of work that an elephant does but at a donkey’s salary,” he grumbles. What has added to stress and resentment is the one-year notice period for pilots and six months for co-pilots if they wish to leave the job.
“Which company would wait for a year to hire you?” asks the above official, adding that the move implemented last August has badly affected pilot morale.
It’s not only the staggering number of accidents that has put Pawan Hans under intense public scrutiny, there are other glaring security slip-ups as well.
In a span of just three years — 2014 to 2016 — Pawan Hans had 38 “incidents”. The report, based on the findings of an RTI by an activist, defines an incident as an occurrence that could affect aircraft safety.
The highest number of incidents, the report added, were 17 in 2016, though number of flights operated per year came down from 1.06 lakh in 2014 to 78,856.
The callous disregard for safety is not confined to Pawan Hans. It is part of the government-owned company syndrome.
For Pawan Hans, there is an urgent need for a deep cleansing of the organisation and fleet. But that will have to start at the top. Only the government is in a position to radically reform the nation’s biggest helicopter carrier before it crashes for good.
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MUMBAI: Rattled by a series of helicopter mishaps faced by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, the state administration has decided to set up helipads only at select places, like MIDC estates, open playgrounds or police parade grounds in and around towns or villages.
The helipads’ radius should be about 500 metres without any cable, wire or highrise building intercepting gliding paths, policy guidelines finalised by the state have suggested. The guidelines were issued by Mantralaya on Friday to local administrative offices across the state.
The basic certification of the site will have to be done by the collector, on whose recommendation the director of the state’s civil aviation wing will inspect and approve it for landings and take-offs, the amended policy suggested.
Civil aviation secretary Valsa Nair Singh confirmed that the policy had been finalised. The guidelines, said sources, have been simplified so that local administrations can follow them easily.
A review of the policy was sought after the Latur mishap, when the CM and his officials escaped with minor injuries. Operators of the helicopters carrying VIPs will also be able to scrutinise the helipad sites before scheduling operations.
“While amending the policy, the state has followed guidelines which exist in Europe and the US. All our regulations can suit conditions needed to operate helicopters weighing around 5,700kg,” senior protocol officers said. The guidelines set by directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) have been incorporated to ensure maximum safety during landings and take-offs.
Another senior official said the biggest roadblock in creating safe helipads was local administrations, especially officials in infrastructure agencies, who have to act in accordance with guidelines while creating helipads. “Delays in budget provisions for helipads is another hurdle in achieving targets,” he added.
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About $45 billion is estimated to be required to develop airport infrastructure in the country, Nayar said. “A substantial percentage (of this) will come through foreign investments.”
