The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security has revoked security clearance of Turkish ground handling company Celebi citing national security concerns.
The action, which is a direct fall out of Turkish government support to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, was initiated today.
Celebi provides passenger and cargo ground handling services to major foreign airlines at nine airports in the country, including its busiest – Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad among others. In Delhi, it also runs the cargo terminal. According to an industry source, Celebi handles around 160 flights daily at the nine airports. Celebi has 7,800 employees in India
Celebi’s contracts and its employees in India are expected to be taken over by other ground handling companies such as Bird Group, AISATS, AI Airport Services Ltd to ensure continuity of flight operations. The validity of airport entry passes of Celebi’s staff is likely to be extended to enable the transition.
“Our endeavour is to ensure normal operations and avoid job losses,” said a chief executive officer of one of the airports.
“For the past two days, we have been in discussion with airports and have expressed our readiness to take over Celebi’s operations to mitigate inconvenience to passengers,” said AIASL CEO Rambabu Ch.
Celebi, which has been in present in India for over a decade, began its operations in Mumbai in a joint venture and gradually expanded to eight other cities.
It has come under attack over the past week following Turkey criticising Operation Sindoor. Questions were raised about security risk of having a Turkish origin ground handler at airports and calls were made for termination.
On Thursday, Celebi Aviation Holding’s group CEO Dave Dorner met Civil Aviation Ministry officials to persuade them against taking action.
Separately, the CEO of their India operations had also written to Mumbai airport insisting that the company had no political affiliation with Turkey.
“Our business in India is truly an Indian business headed and managed by Indian citizens. All our investments were made through Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearances as per FDI norms and none of the board directors are Turkish nationals as is being alleged. We are security cleared by the relevant regulatory bodies in India,” Tauseef Khan, CEO of its ground handling operations in India, wrote in a letter to MIAL on Monday.