THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Director Board of Air India on Tuesday set aside the proposal to hand over the ground handling services of Thiruvananthapuram International Airport to a Singapore-based foreign agency. The proposal was a joint venture between Air India Limited and Singapore Airport Terminal Services for the provision of the ground handling services. But the Director Board which met in New Delhi on Tuesday decided to set aside this idea since no proper study has been done into the implications of such a scheme. "We will have to check the implications first before accepting this. Hence, the Board has deferred the decision to hand over the ground handling services of Thiruvananthapuram and Mangalore airports to this joint venture,’’ Civil Aviation Director General Bharat Bhushan told this paper. However, it is interesting to note that even before the Board considering the proposal and accepting the MoU between the two, the General Manager of the Air India Southern Region had, on December 18, 2010, issued a circular to the Airport Director of Thiruvananthapuram stating that, "all Air India flights and its customer airline flights will be handled in a phased manner by us through our joint venture AISATS (Air India - Singapore Airport Terminal Services).’’ Following this letter, another circular was issued by the Senior Vice-President of Air India to the Airport Director here urging him to provide Airport Entry Pass and office space to this joint venture company for its operations. This letter written on March 24 this year has urged the Airport Director that, ‘’Air India has appointed its joint venture company Air India SATS to provide ground handling services for the above wing functions to the undermentioned customer airlines at the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport.’’ (This letter has mentioned the names of nine airlines.) Sources said that the Director Board has taken a serious note of how these circulars were issued even before the Board had cleared the proposal and an MoU between the two partners was signed. The City Express, on May 31, had brought out the fact that the Air India authorities were trying to hand over the ground handling services of the Thiruvananthapuram Airport to a Singapore-based agency even before getting a clearance. The staff of Air India Air Transport Services (AIATSL) and Air India Engineering Service Limited, who were handling ground services since 2003, were also asked to report to the new joint venture company. The AIATSL staff had protested against this move and had approached the Chief Minister and Union Civil Aviation Minister against this move of the Air India authorities.
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