The Ministry of Civil Aviation has requested the domestic oil companies to provide a break-up on the pricing of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) within the next 15 days so that ways could be found to lower the high rate that domestic airlines pay for it.

This emerged at a meeting that the Secretary Civil Aviation, Mr Ashok Chawla, had with senior executives of oil companies here on Tuesday. Official sources said that the meeting had been called as there was no clarity on how oil companies were fixing ATF prices.

Crude Prices

“On an average ATF prices in India are about 65 per cent higher than international prices. There are also instances where in the same State the ATF price varies from one airport to another. If this situation continues it will harm the industry and could lead to more sickness,” a senior Government official said.

The annual domestic ATF consumption has been estimated at 50-lakh kilolitres. The Ministry estimates that while during April 2005 and October 2006 domestic crude prices registered a net increase of 16.2 per cent, the oil companies passed on a net increase of 31.6 per cent to the domestic carriers.

ATF accounts for more than 40 per cent of the cost of operations of domestic airlines and every reduction of Rs 1,000 per kilolitre would provide an annual saving of Rs 500 crore for the sector, industry officials indicated.