IATA director-general Giovanni Bisignani in New Delhi on Tuesday. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha

New Delhi, Oct. 18: The International Air Transport Association has asked the government to take steps within 15 months to upgrade the infrastructure at Delhi and Mumbai airports to “prevent chaos” in the skies. The number of incoming flights has increased tremendously without adequate flight paths and runway space.

India has also been placed in the legal dock for imposing a service tax for landing, airport and air navigation fees as IATA feels the tax contravenes international treaties signed by the government.

IATA chief Giovanni Bisignani today said, “We are challenging this on legal grounds ... There is no reason for India to collect 10.2 per cent service tax from airlines for landing, airport and air navigation fees.”

Bisignani said the IATA believed that the tax reduces the competitiveness of the air transport sector. “To gain the full economic benefit of aviation, India needs a common-sense approach to taxation, ensuring that any taxes or charges that are collected are transparent and are re-invested in the sector,” he added.

Civil aviation ministry officials said the issue would be discussed with the finance ministry and “a mutually workable solution would be arrived at”.

The IATA director-general also described the air traffic situation at Mumbai and Delhi airports as “an emergency” and said, “If the problem is not solved in a year or 15 months, you may have safety problems.”

However, Bisignani also warned that global privatisation experience had shown there are more failures than successes, adding IATA “does not care who owns the airports”.

Pointing out that the expansion of air transport in India was “among the fastest in the world”, he described the situation in Mumbai as the “worst” and airports at other major metros as “inadequate”. “We have crowding in many critical air routes,” he said.

“For example, 80 per cent of the flights between Europe and Asia funnel through only two crossing points between India and Pakistan. We need to increase this to four,” he said. The large number of aircraft ordered by carriers like Indian Airlines, Air India, Jet, Sahara and Kingfisher could make the problem worse.

Nilotpal Basu, chairman of the standing committee on transport and CPM leader, had also warned the government that the congestion at the Mumbai airport would deepen if a new airport or runways were not built.