Mexico’s federal consumer attorney’s office Profeco has fined 5 airlines for charging fees on customers’ first checked bags on flights from Mexico City to the US and Canada. The fines, imposed on Aeromexico, Interjet, Volaris and VivaAerobus, as well as JetBlue Airways, total MXP22.4m (US$1.4m). Profeco said the airlines violated provisions of Mexico’s consumer protection law and civil aviation regulations. The federal agency also said the sanctioned airlines were found to have “engaged in misleading advertising, discriminatory acts, abusive clauses in their membership contract and other practices that violate the rights of passengers.” Profeco said it is keeping open potential proceedings against United Airlines and American Airlines for the same infringement. <br/>
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The Indian govt has approved plans to build a new international airport for New Delhi at a cost of INR100b (US$1.55b) for the first phase of construction. Noida International Airport will be built on a 3,000 hectare greenfield site at Jewar in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The first phase, with a single runway, will be operational in 4-5 years, India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation said. Subsequent phases of development will see 3 additional runways and expand capacity to cater for the expected 30-50m passengers annually over the next 10-15 years. Total cost of the airport is expected to be INR150b to INR200b. The new airport, south-east of the capital, will be 72 km from New Delhi’s current airport Indira Gandhi International and close to the Yamuna Expressway, the main highway between New Delhi and Agra. <br/>
The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand's board has agreed to revise the criteria for military pilots looking to make a switch to commercial airlines, said CAAT's director Chula Sukmanop. He said military pilots and those who fly for state-run agencies will be required under the new rules to complete 200 hours of flying commercial transport planes to obtain a licence to fly commercial airliners. The current rule requires that applicants seeking to fly for a commercial airliner have logbooks with 1,500 hours. Chula said dozens of military and police pilots as well as those in other agencies quit every year to join the ranks of commercial pilots, with the existing rules causing headaches for them as they make the change. Chula said concerns about possible brain drain have been taken into consideration when approving the new criteria. <br/>
Thailand’s tourism bounty comes with a big challenge for the head of Airports of Thailand: expanding passenger capacity in Bangkok by about the size of South Korea’s population. The company is planning for 90m passengers annually at the city’s main Suvarnabhumi Airport by 2022 and 40m at Bangkok’s low-cost hub Don Mueang International, up from the present combined capacity of 75m, president Nitinai Sirismatthakarn said. The firm operates 4 other airports, including in tourism hot-spot Phuket. "We’re about to invest in 10 years about US$6b for our 6 airports," Nitinai said. The plan for Suvarnabhumi includes adding a concourse to the existing terminal complex by 2020, a third runway the following year and a new international terminal in 2022, he said. <br/>