The civil aviation ministry has sought a clarification from the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) for allegedly overstepping its mandate on fixing aeronautical tariff. The development follows a recent disagreement between the two over a suitable methodology to fix airport tariff across the major airports.
?As per the AERA Act, the regulator can determine tariff only at major airports where annual traffic is in excess of 1.5 million. Since air navigation services (AN) are provided across the airports irrespective of major or non-major, the AERA can not regulate this,? a ministry official told FE.
However, an AERA official said: ?There is no question of overreaching our jurisdiction. AERA regulates aeronautical tariff including ANS charges at 14 major airports on the basis of the airport operator?s cost and revenue. The AAI had given some practical difficulty in segregating the cost of air navigation services for different airports since the infrastructure is common. On this, we asked them (AAI) to keep ANS charges for other airports same to those of 14 airports. Since this is a new area, we keep consulting the ministry and sort out the issues.?
?The ANS providers are typically monopolies as there can only be one ANS provider for any given airspace. In the case of India, AAI has sole control over Indian airspace,? International Air Transport Association country director Amitabh Khosla said.
The way ANS charges are levied varies across providers. For overflights, some providers charge on a flat rate basis while others charge based on aircraft weight and distance flown.
AAI fixes and levies a uniform rate for ANS at all airports on the basis of investment made for creating the infrastructure and revenue generated from them.
?AERA apparently took up the issue of regulating ANS on the basis of an AAI proposal. The regulator should not have taken cognisance of that proposal and exceeded its brief,? the official quoted earlier said.