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CITU against closure of existing airports

BANGALORE: President of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) M.K. Pandhe has asked the government to allow the existing airports at Bangalore and Hyderabad to “compete on a level-playing field” with the new greenfield airports about to be commissioned.

In a letter to Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel on March 7, Mr. Pandhe reminded him of the promise he made to representatives of the Airport Authority of India (AAI) on February 25that he would wait for the report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee before deciding on the issue of the closure of the existing airports.

Mr. Pandhe said the closure “cannot be carried out without a specific Cabinet decision” and that it had not been approved by the AAI Board.

Quoting from the Committee’s report, which was tabled on March 5, Mr. Pandhe said “both airports are required in view of the changing scenario in passenger traffic.”

The committee had observed that the new airport at Bangalore was designed to handle 9 million passengers, while the existing HAL airport had actually handled almost 10 million passengers in 2007.

It had urged the government to “renegotiate” the issue with the private operators of the new airports. It said the “revenue implications” of such a course “must not inhibit the government from proceeding on such a course in the national interest.”

Mr. Pandhe also referred to the discussions at the tripartite committee, which was established in the run-up to the privatisation of the airports at Mumbai and Delhi, on October 13, 2006. Among the recommendations that had emerged, he said, was one stating that “when the new airport [at Bangalore] becomes operational, the AAI should provide facilities to any airlines that want to operate through [the] existing airport.”

Mr. Pandhe refuted the contention of the government that the decision to close down operations at the existing airports after the commissioning new airports flowed from the recommendation of the Task Force on Infrastructure, chaired by the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission on March 11, 2000.

Quoting from Chapter 8 of the policy on airport infrastructure, Mr. Pandhe pointed out that the new policy only observed that “a greenfield airport can be allowed both as a replacement for an existing airport or for simultaneous operation.”

Mr. Pandhe said the major stakeholders such as the AAI management were “bypassed for the sake of a so-called concessional agreement with two private parties.”

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