India's airport charges second highest in Asia
Friday, 13 July 2007, 19:30 IST
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Mumbai: India's airport charges are the second highest among Asian and Gulf airports, after Hong Kong, reported the Business-Standard. International flights pay 33 percent more than domestic flights landing at the same airport in India while airports of other countries do not have a different tariff. Aeronautical charges should be cost based with charging systems that extract only reasonable profits supported by complete, transparent accounts based on standard business principles, according to International Air Travel Association (IATA). "Though India is the second highest among Asian airports, airlines do not get value for money at airports. Airlines pay more yet receive services that are way below those of Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai and Bangkok," Albert Tjoeng, Asia spokesperson of IATA told BS. Indian airports charges are four times higher than Kuala Lumpur for handling a small Airbus A320 aircraft for a three-hour turn around. Industry analysts also pointed out that the airport charges of India are also several fold higher than in Europe and U.S. Tjoeng said that India is imposing excessive overflight charges at seven profitable airports to cross-subsidize other non-profitable airports. "According to International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the airport charges should be equitable in cost allocation to ensure there are no cross subsidies between users," he added.
Source: IANS
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