Monday, December 17, 2018

Airports’ privatisation to be completed by February 2019

New Delhi: Moving full steam ahead to privatise six big airports on the lines of Delhi and Mumbai’s mega airports, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) on Friday issued request for proposal (RFP) for Lucknow, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Mangaluru and Thiruvananthapuram. The state-run airport operator wants to hand over the operations, management and development of these six growing airports to private players for 50 years.
The authority has given a tight timeline for this second big round of privatising airports after Delhi and Mumbai were bid out over a decade back. The last date for submission of bids is February 14, 2019. Technical bids will be opened two days later to decide the winner. And the winning player will get the letter of award on February 28, according to the schedule AAI plans to follow.
However, whether all or any of these six airports pass on to private hands in the last few months of this government’s tenure remains to be seen. “Any private player taking over a government-run airport or airline expects resistance from the PSU employees working there. They want certain comfort of support from the government that has privatised these airports or airline after taking over the place. Doing so in the last days of a government means the interested players are uncertain of getting support from the next administration in case of a change in guard following the elections,” said an airport official on conditions of anonymity.

AAI has had several disagreements with the private airport operators in Delhi and Mumbai over the amount of revenue to be shared. There have been allegations in the past that the private airport operators formed subsidiaries to hive off certain non-aero operations at these airports in a bid to avoid revenue share with AAI as per the privatisation pact.
To avoid such disputes, the authority has now opted for a new model of revenue generation from these six airports’ prospective bidders. “The concessionaire shall pay to the Authority, on a monthly basis, a fee (the ‘per-passenger fee’) in respect of each passenger (both domestic and international) handled at the airport in accordance with the concession agreement … the concessionaire shall be entitled to collect charges from users of the airport in accordance with the concession agreement,” the RFP document says.
17/12/18 Saurbh Sinha/Times of India
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