National carrier Air India will tie up with global companies to form a joint venture for taking up ground handling activities at airports in the country.
NEW DELHI: National carrier Air India will tie up with global companies to form a joint venture for taking up ground handling activities at airports in the country and abroad.
The airline, which already has a JV with Singapore Air Terminal Services (SATS) to provide ground handling services at Bangalore and Hyderabad airports, would soon seek Expressions of Interest for similar activities in India and abroad, airline sources said here.
Air India earns over Rs 550 crore annually through such activities. Along with Indian, which is being merged into it, the two airlines carry out over 80 per cent of these activities in Indian airports.
The state-owned carrier's move to go in for joint venture on ground handling comes in the backdrop of the government's decision to have only three agencies to perform the task in all airports across the country from January 2009.
The Civil Aviation Ministry has decided that the agencies which would cary out these services would be the specialized subsidiary or joint venture firm established by national airlines, Airports Authority of India or other airport operators and a ground handling company selected through the competitive bidding process on a revenue-sharing basis.
The merged Air India, which would have six Special Business Units, would place another of its subsidiary, Hotel Corporation of India (HCI) under one of them.
Sources said while the HCI hotels in Mumbai and Srinagar were proposed to be given out on management contracts, the Centaur Hotel would come under the modernisation plan of Delhi International Airport Ltd.
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