Cochin airport has not dropped user fee: MD

Kochi: The Cochin International Airport Limited, which runs India’s first corporate airport, has not dropped the idea of reintroducing the ‘user fee’ but only deferred a decision, according to its managing director S Bharat.
“The introduction of Airport Development Fee was considered and discussed at the Board meeting (held last week). However the issue has been deferred by the Board to a subsequent meeting. The Board wanted to elicit the views of all the shareholder of CIAL on this issue at the ensuing Annual General meeting of the shareholders of CIAL to be held Sept 10, before a final decision is taken,” CIAL managing director said in a statement here.There was widespread demand from the shareholders to reintroduce the Rs500 user fee levied on the international passengers, which was withdrawn in January 2006 at the instance of the previous United Democratic Front (UDF) government.
The state government is a minority stakeholder in the airport company.According to the shareholders, the airport, built at a cost of Rs3.15bn had been making an annual assured income of Rs240mn and by bringing domestic passengers also into the regime it would be able to collect Rs1.2bn, considering the current level passenger traffic.
22/07/07 Ashraf Padanna/Gulf Times, Qatar

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Categories: Airports Jul 2007