SpiceJet chairman points to delay in bringing aviation turbine fuel under GST

SpiceJet Chaiman and Managing Director Ajay Singh said on Wednesday that the aviation sector was reeling under high costs because of poor “leadership” and decision making.

“The issue we had when we started SpiceJet in 2005 seems to be the same we had in 2018. Clearly, this needs to change. We have this bad habit of shooting ourselves in the foot, this needs to stop. We need to take quick decisions,” Mr. Singh said at a CII event. He cited the delay in getting aviation turbine fuel under the GST regime as an example.

“We struggled with that forever,” he added. “Our civil aviation policy says that its objective is to reduce cost, we are actually going on adding costs. I think this is a mindset issue. People, politicians and bureaucrats, still believe mistakenly that this is something airlines can afford…I think we our shooting ourselves in the foot,” Mr. Singh said.

He said that ‘very little’ was being done to ‘encourage airlines to grow profitably’ and this needed to be addressed. “It can’t be that you have to wait 18 years for a simple little reform. It just shows poor leadership and low priority given to the [aviation] sector.”