User development fee hike unlikely at Chennai, Kolkata airports

New Delhi: In a move that could provide relief to air travellers from Chennai and Kolkata, the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) may not accept a proposal of the Airports Authority of India to levy a development fee (DF) on users of the two airports.
The state-owned airport operator has approached the regulator seeking levy of the fee on flyers from the two airports, to partially offset the expenditure incurred in modernising the two metro airports.
The AAI is said to have proposed a fee of about Rs 150 on every passenger departing from Chennai and Kolkata. The development fee is a pre-financing levy.
Sources indicated that the regulator feels the fee should be levied only as a “last resort” and when there is no other option left to bridge the gap in the funding of the project.
In this context, there are sections in the AERA which feel that it makes little sense to allow the AAI to raise about Rs 150 crore through imposition of development fee when the entire cost of Rs 2,500-3,000 crore is being raised by the airport operator.
26/02/12 Ashwini Phadnis/Shishir Sinha/Business Line

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Categories: airports Feb 2012