Air India seeks lower landing charges for long-haul, ultra-long-haul flights at IGIA

New Delhi: Air India has pushed for reduced landing fees for long-haul and ultra-long-haul flights as well as incentives to boost international-to-international traffic at the Delhi airport.

The airline owned by the Tata Group has submitted recommendations to the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) regarding the price plan for the Delhi airport for the 2024–2029 control period

The airline is slowly expanding its wide-body operations as well as network to cater to rising air traffic demand.

When asked about the airline's suggestions, Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson told PTI that the economic structure of the market should be supportive of the efforts to make India an aviation hub.

DIAL, the operator of the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in the national capital, has proposed different user fees for economy and business class passengers as well as for peak and off-peak hours.

According to Air India, the variable tariff proposal needs to include incentives for increasing I2I (International to International) traffic at the Delhi airport, which may be introduced by the regulator.

Among other suggestions, Air India has said AERA may consider reducing the landing charges for long-haul and ultra-long-haul flights by at least 30 per cent on a per MT (Metric Tonne) basis.

Generally, long-haul flights have a duration of more than nine hours while ultra-long-haul flights are those having a duration of 16 hours or more. Air India operates ultra-long-haul flights to North America.

"AERA may consider a waiver of landing charges and reduce the UDF charges by 20 per cent to promote utilisation of wide-body on domestic flights," the submission signed by P Balaji, Group Head of GRC (Governance, Regulatory, Compliance) & Corporate Affairs at Air India, said.

Noting that Delhi and Mumbai would be important hubs for both I2I and D2I (Domestic to International) passenger flows, the airline also said the current consultation and determination of tariffs on IGIA would have an impact on the creation of an aviation hub.

Earlier this week, Wilson told PTI that the ambition of the government is to build India as an aviation hub and to use that as a catalyst for the economic activities that aviation brings.

"Presently, a lot of that benefits accrue to foreign countries where they have a lot of traffic from India... more wide-body services, building a hub out of Delhi or Mumbai will increase the transit traffic... as a consequence, we think that the economic structure of the market should be supportive of that," he said.

With PTI inputs