CAAN forms committee to review fees

Responding to the request of airline operators, Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has taken initiative to review charges of different services that it increased recently. The aviation service regulator has formed a committee to review charges for certain headings.CAAN had increased charges for ground handling, navigation, parking charges, room, building and space rent for international airlines operating in Nepal in April. It, however, notified airlines about the hike in charges one month ago only. The hike in fees ranged from 42 percent to 9,900 percent recently. Board of Airlines Representatives of Nepal (BARN) - a forum of international airlines operating in Nepal - had officially requested CAAN to review the charges last week. “We sent a letter to CAAN on Friday, requesting it to review fees. With the fresh hike, it would be very difficult to sustain their business in Nepal,” Bishnu Subedi, executive secretary of BARN, said. Along with increasing fee for different headings, CAAN had also introduced a new provision of taking royalty for different other facilities like secondary baggage screening for all type of aircraft, excess baggage income of airlines and fee for meteorology, intern students, and using training and seminar hall, among others. The maximum increment has been seen in the rent of ground handling equipment parking yard. CAAN has increased the rent to Rs 30,000 per square per meter from Rs 300 per square meter per year. Ratish Chandra Lal Suman, director general of CAAN, said the committee will review the rent of ground handling equipment parking yard. “We have received request letter from BARN regarding high increment in rental charge of ground handling equipment parking yard. The committee will propose a new rental charge,” Suman said, maintaining that other charges, however, will not be reviewed. As for the new provision is concerned, Suman said of royalty on secondary baggage screening will be removed. CAAN has directed the committee to propose a new rental charge for ground handling equipment parking yard. “As soon as the committee proposes rate, we will enforce it after seeking permission from the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation,” Suman said, arguing that the hike in other charges is nominal and that it is the first hike in more than a decade. “We revised the fees based on inflation rate, high dollar value, operating cost and many other factors,” Suman said, adding, “Airlines increase fare almost every year. This is the first time in a decade that we have revised fees of our services.” Meanwhile, Subedi said airlines will have to raise airfare if CAAN does not review all charges.Bharat Kumar Shrestha, chairman of Airlines Operators Committee (AOC) Nepal and airport services manager of Oman Air, said all the airlines will have to face adverse financial conditions if CAAN didn´t review the fees.