Soon, you may have to pay more at IGI

NEW DELHI: Flying out of Delhi could soon get more expensive, with the IGI Airport operator wanting a hike in passenger handling charges.
Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd (DIAL) has sought a uniform passenger service fee (PSF) for ‘facilitation’ of Rs 77 on each departing passenger. If approved, it would per se mean a hike of Rs 67 and Rs 32 per domestic and international flyer. Currently, domestic flyers pay Rs 10 each and international flyers pay Rs 45 each as user development fee (UDF) since last July.

While these charges would be unique to Delhi, across India passenger service fee (PSF) has another component of Rs 130 that is charged from each flyer to cover the cost of security personnel deployment by CISF and state police at airports all over the country. As reported by TOI earlier this week, both state-run Airports Authority of India and private metro operators have asked the government to hike this charge by about 50%.

The combined effect of the facilitation fee and a higher security component of PSF could see a combined hike of anywhere up to Rs 150 per outbound passenger in Delhi (with tax).

DIAL has sought a hike in facilitation charges from the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA). Last July, the aviation ministry had reduced user development fee (UDF) for arriving passengers to zero (which earlier ranged from Rs 207 to Rs 933). The UDF for departing passengers was made Rs 10 for domestic flyers (from earlier Rs 245-490) and Rs 45 for international flyers (from earlier Rs 566 to Rs 1,131). DIAL has sought permission to levy Rs 77 as PSF-facilitation, and then the UDF component will be removed.

AERA has sought comments from stakeholders before giving its ruling on this issue.

Thanks to the huge spurt in number of flyers in last few years and the very high UDF rates (till last July), DIAL has collected much more from passengers under the UDF head than it was supposed to.

“The authority (AERA) is aware that DIAL has recovered much more than what is due to it in the first and second control periods upto July, 2017. In the absence of the audited figures for 2017-18, it is estimated that the amount of over recovery by DIAL would be of the order of approximately Rs 5,200 crore, taking into consideration the net present values. This amount will need to be trued up and deducted from the (revenue requirement) for the third control period and if it is not possible, the recovery will have to be made from the ARR for the fourth control period,” AERA’s consultation paper on determining aeronautical tariffs for IGIA said.