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Journalism of Courage
The country’s first private airport, Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL), wants a retake on the deal it had struck with Air-India over ground handling rights in 1999.
CIAL, which clocked a net profit of Rs 34 crore last year, has decided to get into the lucrative ground handling role. A-I still has four more years before the 10-year contract ends.
‘‘We aren’t aiming to push A-I out of ground handling at this stage. We would do it for the new airlines, and A-I would continue with all the current ones. But all new airlines coming here will have the option to choose A-I or us as their handlers,’’ CIAL’s airport director Chandrakumaran Nair said.
A few domestic carriers, including Kingfisher and Paramount, will soon start using the Cochin airport, and a couple of foreign airlines are looking at it too.
Nair claims that the CIAL move doesn’t violate the contract, since it doesn’t have an implicit exclusivity clause. ‘‘Besides, there’s a recent government decision to have multiple agencies do the ground handling at airports, to increase competitive efficiency,’’ he said.
But A-I officials are not ready to give in. ‘‘If CIAL can’t find our exclusive rights in the contract, they must be kidding. The government decision to have multiple ground handling agencies obviously can’t apply to airports that have a contract in force,’’ a top A-I official said.
A-I had paid a total of Rs 16 crore by way of equity participation, and as interest free deposits. It has also been paying CIAL a royalty of 15 per cent on gross revenue. Both sides now await government reaction when the formal proposal goes to New Delhi.
