Adani Group set to begin airport operations in 3 new cities, including Ahmedabad

After successful the bid to accumulate the operations of the Mumbai airport in August this yr, Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL) is at the moment getting ready itself for a brand new set of airport takeovers within the coming days. The group would basically, for a 50-year-lease, keep the operations, administration and growth of the airports at Mangaluru, Lucknow and Ahmedabad from October 30, November 02 and November 11 respectively.

The choice has been made after the corporate was requested by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to take over the three airports earlier than November this yr.

As introduced within the firm’s Annual Report of 2019-2020, Adani Group considers itself “well-positioned to become leading airport operator in India.” The report additionally introduced that the group gained the bids for operations in six airports at Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram, underneath the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mannequin introduced by the central authorities.

The firm additionally stated that they’d function underneath a hybrid enterprise mannequin that contains two income constructions – aero and non-aero revenues. The non-aero revenues could be geared toward tapping the potential of “non-passenger airport visitors.”

While there have been plans to deal with airports within the post-Covid-19 period within the report, the lockdown induced by the pandemic has broadly hindered Adani’s plans for airport domination. The firm introduced in June this yr that the acquisitions of operations in Guwahati and Jaipur airports have been halted, as reported by Mint.

Another problem that the corporate confronted was a authorized battle with the Kerala state authorities after the latter opposed the privatization of Thiruvananthapuram airport, calling it ‘not in public interest.’ However, the Kerala High Court on October 19 this yr dismissed the competition of the state authorities, as reported by the Mint.

Members of the opposition have alleged favouritism on a part of the central authorities for providing all airports to the Adani Group. “There’s a clear violation of norms in giving airports to a single private entity. Govt ignored the advice of some of its own ministries and departments. Changes in norms enabled Adani group to win all six bids,” Congress chief had stated, in response to information company ANI.

Despite the challenges, Adani would proceed with the takeovers as introduced earlier, a press launch from the AAI talked about.