Adani Plans Foray Into Airport Sector; Among 10 Bidders For The Six AAI-Owned Non-Metro Airports

Ten different groups have submitted their bids to privatise six Airports Authority of India (AAI) owned airports, the Financial Express reports. GMR group and Adani Enterprise are among the 10 bidders to have offered to operate all of the six airports- Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Trivandrum, Mangalore and Guwahati.

The rest of the list comprises of Autostrade from Italy, UK based AMP Capital Investors, I Investments from Mauritius, Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC), Sanna Enterprises and PNC Infrastructure.

The six airports were put on the block by the state-owned AAI on 14 December 2018. The operating, management and developing rights for the six non-metro airports would be awarded to the bidder with the highest per-passenger fee for domestic travellers. The winning bid would be announced on 28 February.

The Secretary-General of the Association of Private Airport Operators (APAO), Satyan Nayar, said, “This is a positive response from bidders considering what happened in Mopa (Goa) and Navi Mumbai airports where there was not much interest.” He believes that there would have been more bids if the tender schedule had been relaxed.

While Adani Enterprise has been trying to enter the airport sector for a while now, GMR already is operating the Hyderabad and Delhi airports. Fairfax India and GVK group, which manage the Bengaluru and Mumbai airports respectively, have not submitted a bid.

The six airports would be leased out for 50 years instead of the 30 years during the previous round, 12 years ago, when the AAI had opened the Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Mumbai airports for privatisation.