New Delhi, February 22
The Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Mr Rajiv Pratap Rudy, seems to be going out of his way to pass on Indian Airlines assets to the private airliners, especially Jet Airways.
On the “initiative” of the minister, there is a move to hand over part of the Indian Airlines terminal at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport to Jet Airways. It has also been suggested to allow the private airliner to share the state-run airline’s booking centre at the Safdarjung Airport.
There is also a suggestion to move Air Sahara to the Indian Airlines terminal, while allowing Jet Airways to retain the entire terminal premises from where it presently operates along with Air Sahara.
The Indian Airlines has strongly opposed such moves and has refused to share its assets with any of the private airlines. The protests over the matter have caused tension between the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Indian Airlines Headquarters.
Documents in possession of The Tribune point to the “request” made by Mr Rudy to Jet Airways to “analyse a possible reallocation of the terminal facilities at Mumbai and Delhi airports between Indian Airlines, Jet Airways and Air Sahara”.
In a letter written on January 14, 2004, Jet Airways’ Chief Executive Officer Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, while giving several suggestions, says: “We in Jet Airways welcome your initiative.”
The CEO further says: “I would like to inform you that Indian Airlines has expressed strong concerns about Jet Airways moving to the Indian Airlines terminals due to the expected capacity and infrastructure constraints.”
For Mumbai, the solution that has been suggested is that Air Sahara be moved to the Indian Airlines terminal and Jet Airways remains in the existing terminal. “In order to improve the situation for our passengers, we expect that the entire area vacated by Air Sahara would be allotted to Jet Airways,” the airlines has written, while pointing out that Air Sahara was willing to move. It suggested that even the Air Deccan’s passenger handling might also be located in the Indian Airlines terminal.
For Delhi, two suggestions have been made to the minister: either Jet moves to the Indian Airlines terminal or Sahara be shifted to this terminal, leaving Jet independently at Terminal II.
For the first option, a suggestion has been made to hand over the entire right half of the terminal and all 17 counters located there to Jet Airways as its dedicated facilities. Further, an area of 1,000 square metres has also been sought for its back-up offices.
Besides, Jet Airways has also suggested that in order to avoid congestion at the departure level, it be given exclusive use of four boarding gates and the number of boarding gates be increased from four at present to eight.
