Boycott Turkey call gets louder: Celebi’s security clearance is revoked. What next?

Within days of starting the controversy around Celebi India, the ground handling agency (GHA), which is a subsidiary of Celebi headquartered in Turkey, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) passed an order cancelling the security clearance of Celebi Airport Services India Pvt Ltd with immediate effect. Celebi started operations in India in 2008, starting with Mumbai, followed by Delhi in 2009. Since then, in the last 16 years, it has grown to be a major ground handling agency in India with a presence at a total of nine stations in India — Mumbai, Delhi, Cochin, Kannur, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Goa (GOX), Ahmedabad and Chennai. The security clearance revocation comes amid Shiv Sena staging protests at Mumbai airport demanding MIAL (Mumbai International Airport Limited) remove Celebi as its GHA.

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Celebi is present in ground handling, general aviation services, cargo and warehousing in India and employs over 7,800 people and many more indirectly in India. The split of employees by nationality is unknown. The high point for the company has been handling G20 movement in 2023 in Delhi, for which it was the exclusive ground handler.

The government order is signed by Jt. Director Operations and states that the security clearance in r/o Celebi Airport Services India Pvt Ltd is hereby revoked with immediate effect in the interest of national security. The last clearance was obtained in 2022.

What does a ground handling and cargo agency do?

A GHA provides essential services to ensure the smooth and efficient operation of aircraft on the ground and the handling of cargo. They handle tasks like aircraft parking, loading and unloading of cargo and baggage, passenger services like check-in and boarding, towing, refuelling, and more. The GHA also has equipment like towbar, tow truck, ground power unit, air conditioning and more and is largely the local representative for the airline at the airport.

A ground handling agency is an accepted norm across most parts of the world since it helps the airline focus on core operations and not have a large staff at airports where it has fewer flights. This is even more prevalent in case of international airlines, since beyond key hubs the number of flights is restricted to single-digit flights a day, which makes employing their own staff cumbersome, expensive and adds overheads of compliance.

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It is precisely for this reason that there has been an outcry about the Turkish origins of the parent since the company has access to sensitive areas like airports and places like apron and baggage handling within the airport.

What next?

There will be a few questions to answer in an immediate to intermediate time span. The first is ground handling of airlines, which are contracted with Celebi currently at the nine airports in India where the company is present. Will there be an immediate disruption of services, and if yes, how will it be handled? Even if airlines have to change the ground handling agency, it takes a certain time to make the change, and the airlines may now be caught in a tough spot to make the change at the earliest. The change will also be challenging since the new agencies will have to recruit people to handle more airlines and train them to meet the standards which airlines expect.

The second and most important is the future of employees. Time and again, Indian aviation has seen the impact on people of the collapse of airlines and allied companies, and this time will be no different. However, it is certain that employees will be needed in the same or similar roles since the work is not going away. It is to be seen how soon and who steps up to manage the potential chaos.

More often than not, the government would have thought out the possibilities and would have a plan in place to expedite the security clearance of employees for other agencies who will step up to grab this business and avoid disruption. The immediate consequences will be known in a few hours.