Airport user fee set to take off in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: A flight out of India’s showpiece airport just got costlier.
In a first for domestic air travel in India, passengers leaving the five-month-old Rajiv Gandhi International Airport will have to pay a user development fee of Rs 375 from the midnight of Friday, August 22.
The decision comes a day after the Centre issued draft guidelines on the fee, which private airport developers want to levy as a means to recoup costs.
The swanky, new-age Rajiv Gandhi airport at Shamshabad, which started operations on March 23, had levied a user development fee of Rs 1,000 ($25) for overseas travel in June. It is India’s first private greenfield airport and is designed to accommodate the world’s largest planes.
The new Bengaluru (Bangalore) International Airport charges Rs 1,070 as user fee from international passengers, but is yet to levy any charge for domestic travel.
Earlier this month, GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited, which owns and operates the Shamshabad facility, had announced it had submitted five fee models to the civil aviation ministry. Sources in Delhi said the ministry had given its nod to GMR to levy the fee of Rs 375 as an “interim arrangement”.
19/08/08 GS Radhakrishna

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Categories: Airports Aug 2008