The Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) would appeal to the Supreme Court against a decision of the Delhi High Court which bars carriers to undertake ground-handling activities at the country?s top metro airports including Hyderabad and Bangalore.
?The lawyers have drafted the application. There is a laid down court procedure and it would come for hearing in due course,? FIA secretary general Anil Baijal said.
The Delhi High court recently upheld a Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) decision restricting airlines like Jet Airways, Kingfisher and IndiGo from activities like baggage handling, cargo scanning, taxing, refueling and cleaning of the aircraft among others.
The airlines have maintained that such restriction would affect their ability to distinguish themselves from rivals and render ground-handling equipment worth hundreds of crores useless.
The civil aviation ministry had formulated the new ground handling policy based on the security concerns in the face of terror attacks. The policy, however, could not be implemented as airlines lobbied against it and argued that it would add to the cost of already bleeding industry.
The new policy permits only three agencies in one metro airport ? the national carrier Air India, the airport operator (such as Airports Authority of India, GMR and GVK), and one private firm selected through competitive bidding ? to provide ground handling services at the country?s six metro airports.
