The Hindu Business Line : Uncertainty over airport launch date hurting GMR

Hyderabad, March 16 With the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) choosing not to indicate a fresh date for shifting of operations from the Begumpet airport to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, the GMR Hyderabad International Airport is set to incur significant losses.

The interest component alone has been put at Rs 175 crore annually for the Rs 2,900-crore greenfield project. This translates into a Rs 50-lakh burden every day, sources said.

This apart, loss of revenues in terms of aero and non-aero revenues is expected to be a few times over. Apart from landing and parking charges, the company hopes to earn huge revenues from a variety of commercial activity that included cargo operation and concessions from a host of services at the airport.

“It is a national waste putting a fully ready, both technically and commercially, facility idle. The State and Central Governments (which hold 13 per cent stake each) too are losing income,” a senior company executive said.

Besides, the company also counts on huge operations, maintenance, administration and salary costs. “Whether it goes live or not, we need to maintain it as if it is a functional airport,” he said.

“Airport operations are generally considered to be monopoly. But in order to ensure competition, we involved two players in ground handling to ensure global standards and security. This, some airlines don’t want, hence they are trying to arm-twist us,” he felt.

Meanwhile, the company has decided to showcase the airport to the residents of Hyderabad. As the launch date is pushed further, the company wants to win over the hearts of prospective passengers by showing various world-class facilities created at the airport.

Impact on airlines

Incidentally, it is hurting the airlines too as a good number of them have shifted their enabling systems to the new airport, believing that they will have to operate from there from March 16.

They had to go in for contingency arrangements following the sudden decision of MoCA to continue the operations at the Begumpet airport.

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