Nearly 75 per cent of airports owned and managed by the Airport Authority of India (AAI) made losses in FY 2018-2019, according to government data.

As many as 102 airports out of 137 airports managed by AAI, together made losses of Rs 1,646.66 crore.

The Bhopal airport made the highest losses at Rs 65.46 crore, followed by Varanasai airport at Rs 61.14 crore, Aurangabad at 58.71 crore, and Imphal incurred losses worth Rs 58.63 crore.

In 2019, the Government had accorded ‘in-principle' approval for leasing out six AAI airports including Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Jaipur Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram for operation, management and development through Public-private-partnership model.

AAI floated Global Tender inviting bids and identified the highest bidder. In July 2019, approval for leasing of Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru airports Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL) was given.

Adani had quoted the highest per passenger fee (PPF) for these airports under PPP for a lease period of 50 years as per the terms and conditions of the bid documents. According to data, the PPF for Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru is Rs 177, Rs 171 and Rs 115 respectively.

The Concession Agreement between AAI and Adani for Operation, Management and Development of these three airports has been signed in February 2020.

According to the data, Ahmedabad and Mangalore airports made profits of Rs 52.46 crore and Rs 41.48 crore whereas, Luckow airport incurred losses worth Rs 29.78 crore in FY18-19.

According to the data Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram PPP is held up due to pending litigations / other issues.

Jaipur airport made losses worth Rs 2.49 crore, whereas Guwahati and Thiruvannanthapuram made profits of Rs 30.59 crore and Rs 81.15 crore respectively.

AAI has also proposed six more airports for the development, management and operations under the PPP model including Trichy, Bhubaneswar, Raipur, Indore, Varanasi and Amritsar.

According to the data besides Trichy all five airports made heavy losses. Trichy recorded a profit of Rs 17.92 crore. Bhubaneswar made losses worth Rs 22.99 crore, Raipur made losses worth Rs 30.48 crore Indore made losses worth Rs 25.02 crore Varanasi made losses worth Rs 61.14 crore and Amritsar made losses worth Rs 38.87 crore respectively.

According to government data, for FY 2018-2019, the AAI made a net profit of Rs 2,271.44 crore which was lower by over approximately Rs 528 crore than the previous fiscal which was at Rs 2801.64 crore.

A week ago, Businessline had reported that AAI was planning to raise up to $300 million through External Commercial Borrowings (ECBs) in the next financial year as part of its ₹25,000-crore capex.

The funds will be raised to create and strengthen the country’s airport infrastructure.

The State-owned airport operator secured Board approval last month to raise funds through the ECB route.

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