New Delhi: Even as debate over airport congestion charges rages on, the Aviation Minister has come out with a clarification. Praful Patel says that the government is not planning to "double" peak hour airport charges, as was earlier stated by the aviation secretary Ashok Chawla. However, he says that there will be a hike in charges.
The Delhi High Court had asked the civil aviation ministry to submit an explanation on why consumers have to pay extra for the inefficiency of the airport authority and the ministry.
This is based on a public interest petition filed in August 2006 against the extra Rs150 per ticket, charged by airline companies as congestion surcharge.
Private airlines justify the surcharge saying that their aircraft burn extra fuel due to the congestion caused by lack of airport infrastructure. Indian Airlines however does not levy this surcharge.
Increasing air traffic and lack of adequate infrastructure leads to congestion in the air. Passengers are already bearing the consequences with delayed and cancelled flights. To add more surcharge over and above the normal fare is clearly “unjust and unjustified”, says Bagai.
While the Civil Aviation Ministry proposed to double landing, parking and navigation charges during peak hours at Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore airports, the Delhi High Court took strong exception to congestion charges already being levied by domestic airlines.
Hearing a PIL — filed by Delhi-based advocate Anoop Bagai — that challenged the legality of this charge, a bench of Justices expressed concern at this “passenger-unfriendly” move.
The Court, however, did not accept this submission and asked the Ministry to “look into” the matter and come up with a detailed response at the next hearing on April 17. Domestic airlines, except for Indian, charge Rs 150 as congestion charge.
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