The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has imposed penalties totalling ₹258 crore on three airlines for cartelisation in fixing and revising fuel surcharge for transporting cargo.
The CCI said on Tuesday that Jet Airways (India) Ltd, InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, SpiceJet Ltd, Air India Ltd and Go Airlines (India) Ltd had colluded in fixing the fuel surcharge rates. “Such conduct was found to have resulted in indirectly determining the rates of air cargo transport and, thereby, in contravention of the provisions of the Act,” the order said.
The complaint was filed by Express Industry Council of India.
Penalties of ₹151.69 crore, ₹63.74 crore and ₹42.48 crore have been imposed upon Jet Airways, InterGlobe Aviation and SpiceJet, respectively. Besides, cease and desist order has also been issued against the airlines.
However, the CCI has not imposed a penalty on Air India and Go Airlines. “Air India’s conduct was not found to be parallel with other airlines. No penalty was imposed on Go Airlines as it gave its cargo belly space to third party vendors with no control on any part of commercial/economic aspects of cargo operations done by vendors, including imposition of FSC,” the order stated.
The penalty imposed was 1 per cent of the average turnover of the last three financial years.