The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has imposed penalties of Rs. 258 crore on Jet Airways, IndiGo and SpiceJet for their alleged action in fixing and revising fuel surcharge for transportation of cargo.
The commission has noted that the airlines acted in parallel in collusion in fixing the rates. “Such conduct was found to have resulted in indirectly determining the rates of air cargo transport and thereby in contravention of the provisions of Section 3(1) read with Section 3(3)(a) of the Act,” the CCI said a in statement.
Jet Airways has been imposed a penalty of Rs. 151.69 crore, IndiGo Rs. 63.74 crore and Spice Jet and Rs. 42.48 crore. Besides, the CCI has issued cease-and-desist order against the airlines.
However, no penalty has been imposed on Air India as its conduct was not found to be parallel with other airlines. Similarly, penalty has not been imposed on Go Airlines (India) as it gave its cargo belly space to third party vendors “with no control on any part of commercial/economic aspects of cargo operations done by vendors, including imposition of FSC [surcharge].”
While imposing penalties, the commission noted that such conduct in the air cargo industry undermined the economic development of the country and acted to the detriment of the end-consumers.
However, the airlines have denied the charges. “Jet Airways is not in contravention of the provisions of the Competition Act and shall pursue all available legal steps to defend its position,” it said in a statement.
