Now Reading: Centre: No policy bar on airport operators running airlines
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Centre: No policy bar on airport operators running airlines
The Union government on Monday clarified that there is no central policy barring major airport operators from holding stakes in or running scheduled airlines. Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol…
The Story in Brief
The Union government on Monday clarified that there is no central policy barring major airport operators from holding stakes in or running scheduled airlines. Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol told Rajya Sabha that while no blanket policy exists, certain Public-Private Partnership (PPP) concession agreements, particularly for Delhi and Mumbai airports, do impose restrictions. The clarification came in response to a question from CPI(M) MP John Brittas on cross-ownership between airport operators and airlines.
Mohol confirmed that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has received a request from a private operator seeking a waiver of those contractual restrictions. The ministry has not yet examined the request. The development follows reports that the Adani Group, which operates eight airports including Mumbai, is exploring an entry into the airline business. The group has denied those reports. Incumbent airlines, including IndiGo, have warned that such cross-ownership could create a conflict of interest and hurt consumers.
The Indian Opinion
The usual alarm bells are ringing again, with cries of 'conflict of interest' and 'no global precedent' drowning out a simpler question: why is the same rule being applied differently? IndiGo's Rahul Bhatia calls it a 'massive conflict of interest' when an airport operator wants to start an airline, yet no one seems to mind that IndiGo itself is a dominant operator at Delhi's Terminal 1. The truth is, the existing PPP contracts at Delhi and Mumbai were written in a different era, and the Adani Group's request for a waiver is simply testing if those clauses still hold. The real test will not come from political grandstanding or corporate lobbying, but from the actual conditions the Ministry attaches to any waiver. Will the ministry insist on functional separation, separate CEOs, separate IT systems, transparent slot allocation? That single detail will settle whether this is about protecting consumers or protecting incumbent market share.
Sources (3): economictimes.indiatimes.com, timesofindia.indiatimes.com, businesstoday.in
This story was synthesised by AI from the 3 sources linked above.
Updated: this story now draws on 3 sources.
