Hyderabad airport defers capex plan to combat slowdown

Hyderabad: GMR Hyderabad International Airport (GHIAL), the developer and operator of Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here, has deferred its Rs 150-crore capital expenditure plan for the greenfield facility and decided not to undertake expansion projects "which are not critical now".
This is on account of its efforts to combat the current slowdown in the economy, which has had a cascading effect on the airport sector.
According to GHIAL chief executive officer P S Nair, the company is also introducing austerity measures to reduce cost of operations by 15-20 per cent besides exploring other sources of revenue.
During the first six months of the current financial year, domestic traffic from the new airport has declined by 7.7 per cent to 2.49 million from 2.7 million in the corresponding period last year (from Begumpet airport). Though the international passenger traffic increased by 8.4 per cent to 779,995 in the same period, the overall decline in passenger traffic was 4.3 per cent as domestic traffic accounts for 77 per cent of the total passenger traffic of the airport.
Besides the decline in passenger traffic, Nair said, the fixation of lower user development fee (UDF) of Rs 375 by the civil aviation ministry for domestic passengers as against Rs 600 sought by the company had impacted GHIAL revenues.
Earlier, the parliament had adopted a bill providing for the constitution of the authority that would regulate tariff charges at airports besides monitoring their performance standards. In spite of the slowdown, GHIAL is expecting a 10 per cent growth in passenger traffic this year.
16/11/08 Business Standard

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Categories: Airports Nov 2008, Cargo Nov 2008