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Air India has been prohibited from handling its own ground operations at US airports according to the recent order released by the US Department of Transportation. The move is being perceived as a retaliatory action because India had also restricted US carriers from handling ground operations two years back.
As per the latest orders by the US Department of Transportation, “The department described the failure of the Indian government to permit US carriers to exercise their bilateral right to perform their own ground handling (to ‘self-handle’) at Indian airports. Based on this failure, the department has suspended their right to self-handle at US airports.”
Earlier in May, the US had warned to halt ground operations of Indian airlines in its country and sought details of the ground operations from the Indian carriers.
Presently, Air India is the only carrier operating direct flights to the US since Jet Airways completed halted its operations. However, the national carrier will not be impacted to a great extent as it has always outsourced its ground handling operations in the US.
