Govt may tweak FDI norms in aviation:Chidambaram

New Delhi: Government may be open to tweaking FDI norms in the aviation sector to attract investment, for which there has to be "willing buyer and a willing seller", Finance Minister P Chidambaram said today. "What is there to tweak, we have allowed 49%. Let us see whether there are potential investors. These are executive decisions, they can always be tweaked," he told PTI in an interview. "See, merely because you raise it (the 49% limit) to 51% does not mean somebody is going to come. There may be a willing buyer, there has to be a willing seller also. The Indian company must be willing to yield control. And (there is) no evidence of that. There are only half a dozen players in the sector," Chidambaram said. He was asked whether there was a possibility of tweaking the FDI norms for the aviation sector due to the lack of response so far. 18/11/12 PTI/Business Standard

Diwali air fares set off government probe

New Delhi: Alarmed by the rocketing air fares this Diwali, aviation minister Ajit Singh on Saturday ordered a probe into the pricing mechanism of airlines, saying "there must be some reasonableness and limit" despite the demand-supply maths. Alongside, the Competition Commission of India may look into complaints that airlines acted as a cartel to push up prices in the festive season. On Diwali eve, economy-class tickets from Mumbai to Kolkata went for up to anything between Rs 35,000 and Rs 43,000, while business class tickets cost over Rs 60,000. A Delhi-Ahmedabad economy ticket of a full-service airline on Diwali was between Rs 6,500 and Rs 39,000. "I have received complaints of overcharging. Airlines have a system of putting seats in different fare buckets (fares rise as an aircraft gets filled). The range of fares in this bucket system must have some logic," said Singh