In a tit-for-tat move, US bars Air India from managing ground operations at its airports

US govt retaliates against India’s decision to not permit the country’s airlines to handle their own ground operations at Indian airports.

File photo of an Air India aircraft | Commons

New Delhi: The United States of America has barred Air India from managing its own ground operations at US airports, in retaliation to the Indian government not permitting US carriers from ground handling at Indian airports.

The US Department of Transportation served this order on 30 July 2019, amending the operating authority of Indian carriers.

Though the order has been sent to both Air India and Jet Airways, the national carrier is the only one affected, since it alone is operating direct flights to and from Washington DC, San Francisco, Chicago and New York.

The order read: “The department described the failure of the Indian government to permit US carriers to exercise their bilateral right to perform their own ground handling (to ‘self-handle’) at Indian airports. Based on this failure, the department has suspended their right to self-handle at US airports.”

Ground handling includes a variety of services, including check-in, boarding, ramp-handling, maintenance, cleaning, catering and refuelling.

However, Air India claimed this ban would not impact its operations. A spokesperson for the airline said: “This is just a formality and there will be no impact since Air India does not operate ground handling on its own. It is all outsourced locally, because it would be too expensive to take labour from India for this job.”

The spokesperson added: “If there are any instructions to us from the government, we will follow accordingly.”

How the decision was arrived at

The Department of Transportation’s order cited the problems faced by Kalitta Air, an American cargo airline, in an ‘AOG’ (aircraft on the ground) situation at New Delhi. On two such occasions in 2017, India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) imposed “procedural burdens” that caused a substantial delay in the movement of cargo, as well as harm to Kalitta’s customers.

Kalitta asked the department to secure a formal pledge from the DGCA that it will respect the needs of US carriers to exercise their bilateral rights on an emergency basis when needed to prevent delay of a cargo shipment, or, alternatively, amend its regulations to provide for emergency substitution of aircraft, without the need to go through an amendment of the carrier’s schedule.

Apart from Kalitta’s formal pleading, the department had received a letter from India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation, dated 9 May 2019, which stated: “We are trying to make efforts to resolve the self-handling matter to the mutual satisfaction of the United Sates and India, and ask that the issue be addressed through consultations.”

However, in its final order, the Department of Transportation stated: “Considering the fact that no party filed an objection to the department’s tentative decision, and of the continuing failure of the government of India to allow US carriers to exercise their bilateral right to self-handle at airports in India, we have decided to suspend the rights of Indian carriers to self-handle at US airports.

It went on to add: “As we have advised the government of India in the course of addressing the self-handling issue, we expect it to fully honour all of the bilateral rights provided for in the US-India Air Transport Agreement, including issues raised by US carriers unrelated to self-handling.”