The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has imposed penalties upon 3 airlines for concerted action in fixing and revising Fuel Surcharge (FSC) for transporting cargo, the watchdog said in a press statement on Tuesday.
CCI has ruled that Jet Airways (India) Ltd, InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, Spice Jet Ltd, Air India Ltd and Go Airlines (India) Ltd acted in parallel in collusion in fixing FSC 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 the Act,” the order said.
The compliant was filed by Express Industry Council of India.
Penalties of ₹151.69 crore, ₹63.74 crore and ₹42.48 crore have been imposed upon Jet Airways, InterGlobe Aviation and Spice Jet respectively. Besides, cease and desist order has also been issued against the Airlines.
However, the CCI has not imposed penalty on Air India and Go Airlines. “Air India’s conduct was not found to be parallel with other airlines. No penalty was imposed on Go Airlines 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,” the order stated.
The penalty was imposed at 1 per cent of the average turnover of the last three financial years.