AAI may infuse fresh equity in Mumbai, Delhi airports to abolish development fee

The civil aviation ministry is looking at fresh infusion of capital to fill funding gaps in the development of the Mumbai and Delhi airports, in order to abolish the high airport development fees being charged at these two major airports in the country.
 
The civil aviation ministry has directed the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to infuse more equity in the Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) and the Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), with a view to abolish the airport development fee currently being charged on users at these two airports.

AAI has been directed to submit its proposals to the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA), an official release said today.

At present, the Delhi airport charges Rs200 per domestic passenger and Rs1,300 per international passenger while the Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) charges Rs100 per domestic passenger and Rs600 per international passenger as ADF.

The expected financing gap in case MIAL will be approximately Rs4,200 crore while in case of Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), it will be approximately Rs1,175 crore, if the ADF is abolished with effect from 1 January 2013.

The aviation ministry had last week directed the AAI to drop its proposal for levying ADF at Chennai and Kolkata airports, which are under development at present.

The ministry's move follows a consultation paper circulated by the AERA on its website, which inter alia asked the AAI the extent to which it would be able to inject additional equity into the project.