'Adani Group asked to take over Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru airports by November 12'

NEW DELHI: The government will soon allow Indian carriers to operate upto 75% of their originally approved schedule of domestic flights. It has also decided to run six more Airports Authority of India (AAI) airports the PPP way — Varanasi, Amritsar, Bhubaneshwar, Raipur, Indore and Trichy. And the Adani Group has been asked to take over and start running the Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru airports by November 12, 2020. The process of handing over remaining airports to the Adani Group — Guwahati, Jaipur and Trivandrum — is on with the letter of award being issued to it.
“Domestic airlines will soon be allowed to increase their capacity to 75%, from 65% at present as we are seeing a healthy revival in air travel. When domestic flights resumed on May 25, we saw 30,000 passengers that day and this number crossed 1.7 lakh on October 3. Given this revival, we will in a week or 10 days allow 75% of originally approved schedule of domestic flights to be mounted by airlines,” aviation minister H S Puri said Thursday, adding he expected to return to the pre-Covid level of over 3 lakh daily domestic passengers between Diwali (November 14) and the year-end.
The aviation ministry top brass Thursday spoke on a number of issues.
Air India: Aviation secretary P S Kharola said there have been a number of suggestions on ensuring that AI divestment this time goes through. Based on these suggestions, a final decision on the way forward for AI sell-off will be decided in coming days. As of now, the deadline to submit expression of interest for the airline is the month-end.
“In pre-pandemic days, we used to operate to 45 international destinations. Doing the pandemic, we have flown to over 40 new destinations abroad. Some of these places include Auckland, Vancouver, Cebu, Hanoi, Bishkek, Dushanbe and Minsk where an Indian carrier operated to for the first time. We will soon add more international destinations like Addis Ababa,” AI chairman Rajiv Bansal said.
AI revenue in the pandemic H1 April-September 2020 period has fallen to about 25% of same time last year. “In Q3 (October-December 2020) we expect revenue to touch 50% and and reach 75% in Q4 (January-March 2021) of same quarters in the previous fiscal. The monthly revenue ranges from Rs 600 crore to Rs 1,000 crore. “We used to offer 40,000 daily seats on domestic flights and tha figure as of now is about 21,000,” he added.
Airports: Aviation minister H S Puri has asked AAI to not allow any airline’s request to waive off charges. Airlines with a cash crunch are on cash-and-carry and will need to give a schedule to clearing their past dues to AAI.
“Our revenue was down by 80% in April-June, 2020, quarter over same period last fiscal. We are yet to cross 50% mark of revenue of last year and had to take working capital loan. The winning bidder of Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru airports (Adani Group) has to take over the airports by November 12 and then the other three will be handed over. We expect upfront payment of Rs 1,000 crore followed by another Rs 1,300 crore from them for the six airports,” AAI chairman Arvind Singh said. Citing force majeure due to the pandemic, Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL) had sought time till February 15, 2021, to take over the airports.
The AAI board has now recommended to running six more airports PPP way — Varanasi, Amritsar, Bhubaneshwar, Raipur, Indore and Trichy — for which the process is on. “We expect an investment of Rs 13,000 crore in these 12 airports from private players,” Singh said.
International air travel: India has formed air bubble with 16 countries so far and is in talks with other like Italy, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and others for creating similar arrangements. “Resumption of schedule international flights depends on a number of things like how the virus (pandemic) behaves in coming months. While regular flights could restart sometime after next March everything else remaining equal, no fix timeline can be given for the same. Till then, the current air bubble arrangements will be strengthened by having these arrangements with more countries,” minister Puri said.