HomeAviation NewsAAI wins arbitration case after judge rejects plea by consortium

AAI wins arbitration case after judge rejects plea by consortium

The agreement between the consortium and AAI does not give exclusive rights to the two entities to provide ground-handling services, Justice Nijjar said.

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By Ashpreet Sethi  August 6, 2018, 1:07:16 PM IST (Published)

AAI wins arbitration case after judge rejects plea by consortium
Airports Authority of India (AAI) won a Rs 3,000-crore arbitration case after Justice SS Nijjar found no merit in a consortium's claim that the airport regulator deliberately breached ground handling rules.


The agreement between the consortium — Bhadra International India and Novia International Consulting APS — and AAI does not give exclusive rights to the two entities to provide ground-handling services, Justice Nijjar said, adding that rules do not limit the number of ground-handling services providers at the airports.

The consortium had filed two separate arbitrations for Chennai and Kolkata airports and a few airports in south India, claiming a collective amount of more than Rs 3,000 crore after accusing AAI of not complying with Ground Handling Regulations, 2007.

According to the two arbitral awards accessed by CNBC-TV18, the consortium claimed an amount of Rs1,882.29 crore plus 18 percent interest for Chennai and Kolkata and Rs 1,260.67 crore plus 18 percent interest for the remaining airports in the south.

The consortium had alleged that airlines operating at these airports were outsourcing the ground-handling services. This was in contravention of its exclusive rights on ground-handling services across seven airports — Chennai, Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Coimbatore, Mangalore and Trichy.

Ground-handling services include aircraft cleaning, servicing, loading and unloading of food and beverages, cargo and luggage handling.

The consortium was awarded the licence to operate ground-handling services at the seven airports in 2010.
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