Indian Airlines not to open any more routes: Patel

New Delhi, May 11 (UNI) The Indian Airlines has no plans at present to add new stations to its existing network due to fleet constraints, said the Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.

He said the Government has laid down route dispersal guidelines with a view to achieve better regulation of air transport services taking into account the need of the different regions of the country.

He said, however, it is up to the airlines to provide air services to specific places depending upon the traffic demand, commercial viability and subject to route dispersal guidelines.

The Minister further said the compliance with route dispersal guidelines are monitored on a monthly basis. Presently, 72 destinations are covered by scheduled airline services.

Responding to another question, Mr Patel said it has been decided that only the user rights in the infrastructure that are given to an airline on non-payment basis like parking bays, landing slots may be allowed to be used by the airline that takes over the aircraft. For all other rights, the terms of lease/sale agreement between airport operator and airline will apply.

He said user rights may be allowed to be used by the airlines that takes over the aircraft only in respect of those rights, which are actually under use by the airline that transfers the aircraft.

All other rights will be taken over by Government/airport operator.

He said the user rights will be available with the airlines that takes over the aircraft only till such time that the infrastructure concerned is under actual use.

He said the recommendations of Aircraft Acquisition Commitee (AAC) have been accepted by the Government. The policy to be followed regarding use of Airport Infrastructure in case of merger/take over of airlines and sale/transfer of aircraft approval by competent authority has been published on the web-site of this Ministry for information of all concerned, he added.

Mr Patel said Indian Airlines has launched aggressive marketing campaign to market itself with potential customers.

He said training is an ongoing process and the skills of the employees especially at the frontline are honed and fine tuned on a continuous basis to meet the challenges in the current highly competitive environment.

The training is imparted to the employees with special emphasis on customer service excellence initiatives, International Air Transport Association(IATA) programmes, sales training and mandatory refreshers for frontline employees.

UNI/BKS PV HT1834