The Hindu Business Line : Cabinet meet on IA fleet acquisition soon: Minister

THE Cabinet Committee on Economics Affairs (CCEA) is to meet this month to take a view on the 43-Airbus aircraft fleet acquisition plan of Indian Airlines, the Minister for Civil Aviation, Mr Praful Patel, said here on Tuesday.

In an informal talk with newspersons, Mr Patel felt that the proposal to provide IA with a budgetary support of Rs 325 crore as stated in the Budget proposals for 2005-06 was "equity infusion linked to the acquisition programme" of the airline.

The State-owned airline has already started price negotiations with the manufacturer to finalise the fleet acquisition plan.

The Minister added that both Air India and IA would look at tying up with either a foreign airline or company to optimise the possibilities that exist in the areas of ground handling and maintenance, repair and overhaul .

"Both the airlines will tie-up with the best in the business. The objective of the tie-up will be to look at an incremental increase in business," Mr Patel said.

Further, Mr Patel felt that the Finance Minister's Budget announcement for creation of a financial special purpose vehicle (SPV) for infrastructure development, would give a boost to the development of the aviation sector. "The SPV will give us support to raise monies for the development of non-metro airports."

Commenting on the progress made in the restructuring programme for modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports, he said that the next meeting of the empowered Group of Ministers (e-GoM) on restructuring of the two metro airports would be held in the next few days. "The e-GoM has agreed to meet at short notice."

The Government, however, was already taking steps to enhance the handling capacity at Delhi and Mumbai airports, Mr Patel said. "The construction of the second runway in Delhi should start in the next six months. We are also taking steps to increase the number of aircraft movement per hours that can be handled by the two airports. We will take it up to 35 aircraft movements an hour by the end of this year," the Minister added.

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