The International Air Transport Association on Monday criticised India for taxing international tickets in contravention of laws formulated by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, PTI reported. The association asked governments to facilitate the growth of worldwide connectivity by avoiding re-regulation, maintaining the integrity of global standards and addressing a capacity crisis.

“India helped develop ICAO resolutions prohibiting tax on international tickets,” the association’s director general, Alexandre de Juniac, said at the 74th IATA Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit in Sydney. “Yet it persists in taxing international travel.” He was referring to the imposition of the Goods and Services Tax on international air tickets.

The industry body reduced its profit forecast for 2018 to $33.8 billion (Rs 2.26 lakh crore) from its December estimate of $38.4 billion (Rs 2.57 lakh crore), CNBC reported. The fuel costs of airlines are forecast to increase nearly 30% this year. The IATA modelled its forecast using a crude oil price of $70 (Rs 4,694) a barrel.

“We are coming back to the [oil price] levels that were problematic a few years ago, but in the meantime the airlines have been very active in trying to clean their balances, restructuring their operations, reducing their costs and being more competitive and resilient,” Juniac told the website FlightGlobal in an interview. “So we think the fuel-price increase should not have the same consequences it did [a few years ago].”

However, in his speech at the annual general meeting, Juniac warned that labour costs and trade tensions could negatively affect the industry along with the effects of “political forces pushing a protectionist agenda”. He told FlightGlobal that any move to close borders to people was bad news. “It is bad news for the economy, even worse for the aviation business,” he said. “We are the first to be hit.”

Juniac said his organisation had advised governments about managing infrastructure costs and privatisation of facilities. “There are a lot of results in that area, which is absolutely crucial,” he claimed. “We have the problem of infrastructure everywhere in the world, whether it’s airports or air traffic controls. If we want to cope with the potential growth, we desperately need it to be efficient, affordable, and [to have] enough infrastructure to cope with that.”