Airline plan grounded again

At the conclusion of the 57th meeting of the NEC on Wednesday,Development of North Eastern Region DoNER Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar confirmed that the NEC had decided to abandon efforts to set up a dedicated airline and would open negotiations with Alliance Air for providing air connectivity to the region. This,Aiyar said,was necessitated since the three bids called to set up the carrier over the past one year have failed.

Indo Power Projects,Spice Entertainment Corporation,Sky King Aviation Ltd and Alliance Air had bid during the latest bidding process. NEC officials said that except for Alliance Air,no other player had any experience or infrastructure to set up a dedicated airline. They also failed to meet many other qualifying criteria,they added.

We now plan to ask Alliance Air to put two aircraft in Guwahati instead of the one that they have at present. We also want them to raise their fleet size to atleast six from the current four, the official added.

Significantly,the NEC had considerably relaxed the qualifying conditions for bids to make space for more players. The bid guarantee,too,was reduced from Rs 2 crore to Rs 25 lakh and the performance guarantee was also lessened.

In 2008,NEC had renewed its agreement with domestic state carrier Alliance Air to provide air connectivity in the region for a one-year period. That agreement looks all set to be renewed now.