Coming up: Low-cost airports

New Delhi: After low-cost carriers, get ready for no-frills airports.
The man who made flying an option for train and bus travellers — Air Deccan founder G R Gopinath — has formed a joint venture with GVK Group (which is developing Mumbai airport), Raheja Developers and Infrastructure Development Finance Corp to build basic low-cost terminals. The focus of this JV will be on small towns across India but it will also bid for big cities where such terminals don't exist. The strategy is two-pronged — develop real estate and airports side by side to help both survive.
Gopinath, now relatively free from running Air Deccan as Kingfisher's Vijay Mallya is on his way to acquiring a majority stake in the company, explained: "These will be bare bone airports with the focus primarily on instrumental landing, night landing, runways and technical side and not on the terminal. The idea is to allow planes to get in fast and leave fast as airlines make money by flying planes rather than by keeping them on ground."
What about the fixed cost incurred on operating aircraft, like lease charges? According to Gopinath, airlines should be able to recover it as the number of passengers increases due to more flights. This would also reduce their average cost per flier.
23/09/07 Saurabh Sinha/Times of india

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Categories: Airports Sep 2007, Merchant Airports Sep 2007, New Sep 2007