SpiceJet not worried about AirAsia's entry: CEO Neil Mills

MUMBAI: SpiceJet, the low-cost carrier promoted by Kalanithi Maran, is not "too worried" about the impending entry of AirAsia, its CEO said, in what is the first reaction since the Malaysian budget airline announced in February its JV with Tata Sons. AirAsia having made its intentions public that it will focus on catering to the market in south India before spreading its wings to a pan-Indian presence, made many analysts to reason that SpiceJet, with core of its operations in the south, will be impacted the most by the entry of AirAsiaReacting to AirAsia's entry in the Indian market where operational costs for airlines have shot up by 40% in the last couple of years due to the levy of high taxes on fuel and a drastic increase in airport tariffs, Neil Mills, SpiceJet CEO, said AirAsia might find it difficult to replicate a model of charging for every value-added service in India like it does elsewhere, which allows AirAsia to keep costs low.
 India's civil aviation sector is governed by an archaic Civil Aviation Act of 1937, an era when the concept of low-cost did not exist at all. "The 1937 Act did not envisage the low-cost model and that law stipulates what governs what the airlines can do and (can) not do in India. So, we are not even allowed to charge for allocated seating here so how are they (AirAsia) going to do that? Will a different set of rules apply for them?" wondered Mills.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-03-18/news/37815106_1_airasia-neil-mills-low-cost-model