Ground-handling at Chandigarh Airport: High Court holds contract given by AAI to AIATSL ‘unreasonable’

The directions came while allowing the petition filed by the Federation of Indian Airlines and some other airlines including Indigo.

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The court observed, “It is also not denied by the respondents that the practice of self-handling of the ground-handling services by the airlines has been continuing even at the metropolitan airports, maybe because of the order of the Supreme Court.”

The court also observed that as per the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, it has been provided that the responsibility for all security-related functions shall be with the airlines concerned and for this purpose, a security coordinator shall be designated by the respective airlines at each airport from where they shall run their operations.

The petitioners had approached the High Court challenging the validity of letter, dated June 4, e-mails, dated July 1 and July 28, as per which the Chandigarh International Airport Limited (CHIAL) had required all the petitioner private airlines to contact AIATSL to undertake their ground-handling functions. Also by the letter dated June 4, the CHIAL had refused to allot any space in the Chandigarh International Airport to any of the airlines to undertake ground-handling activities.

The court said that the petitioner airlines had been self-handling their ground-handling services across the country at “all other airports” and even at the metropolitan airports, though on the basis of the interim order of status quo passed by the apex court.