Message from President, BAOA

Dear BAOA members,

It is both shocking and saddening for our nation to come to terms of the unfortunate loss of General Bipin Rawat, his wife and 12 other brave men from his entourage in the IAF chopper crash in Tamil Nadu last week. Our first CDS General Rawat ji would always be remembered for his inspiring leadership, reforms in the armed forces, resolute strategy and action against both internal and external enemies of our nation. His loss will be felt forever. On behalf of the BAOA board and the members, we share our deepest condolence to the mourning families of the Shaheed in this chopper crash.

On Covid front our industry has just borne the brunt of it for the last 18+ months and are bracing for any further impact of the new variant Omicron. We have to watch this carefully and take all safety precautions to keep our family, staff and passengers healthy and safe from any infections.

The launch of eGCA by our Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia was an important milestone for our industry with regards to transparency, accountability and speed of processing. Whilst it is in its nascent stage, we all agree it will mature into a robust process for achieving the objective of good governance and minimum human interaction in the process of various approvals. We will watch this space carefully and ensure a healthy feedback loop for improvements if any.

The newly formed ‘advisory group’ to address the issues of small aircraft operators has been very active and is in direct interaction with the Minister as well as the senior leadership of MoCA, DGCA and AAI, amongst others. We are already seeing some positive action on ground and we all have to keep this group efficient and vibrant to ensure continuing results. Our MD and Board members are active in this group and we have to strengthen their hands by giving them list of all the issues that we face as well as the impact of actions of the Government bodies who are acting to solve these issues. Some of the issues like unfair ground handling charges, prior parking permissions, restricted and expensive parking availability have already found patient hearing by this group.

Our MD and Board are pretty excited about the forthcoming event, BizAv India 2022 planned for March 23, 2022 at Hyderabad alongside ‘Wings India 2022’ being organised by MoCA and FICCI. We look forward to the wholehearted support and participation of our Industry members to make this show a big success.

Wishing each and every one of you a Happy and happening 2022!

Thanks & Regards

Sudhir Nayak
President, BAOA.