Adani takes all 6, wins bid for Guwahati airport as well

Gautam Adani’s infra group quoted the highest per passenger revenue share of Rs160 to emerge the highest bidder for Guwahati airport after the financial bids were opened by Airports Authority of India (AAI) on Tuesday. 

With this, Adani Enterprises has won bids to operate all six airports — Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangalore, Trivandrum, Lucknow and Guwahati — the government plans to run on a public-private partnership basis for the next 50 years.

“Adani’s per passenger, per month revenue share bid of Rs160 is the highest for Guwahati,” said a senior AAI official. He did not reveal the revenue share offered by the other five bidders, including GMR airports.

Now that the tendering process is complete, AAI sources said, the actual award of work and transfer of the airports to the highest bidder will happen after cabinet clearance.

“The Adani Group is delighted on winning the bids that were invited by AAI in December 2018 for the management of domestic airports under the PPP model. The Indian aviation industry is a growing sector with the government’s continuing focus on creating world class airports. For the Adani Group, initiatives that contribute to nation building remains a focus area,” an Adani Group spokesperson said.

“The airports at Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Trivandrum and Mangalore remain lifelines to their respective states that will enable us to infuse enhanced growth and give wings to the aspirations of the Indian people. We would be aiming to scale up the infrastructure to bring these facilities on par with global standards," the spokesperson added.

GMR Airports, which currently operates some of the country’s major airports, had also bid for all the six airports. 

According to the request for proposal issued for these airports last December, the letter of award has to be issued to the winning bidder on 28 February.

AAI had in the first round of airport privatisation, handed over the Delhi and Mumbai airports to private players, GMR and GVK. It has now shifted from revenue share to a fixed fee model. “The concessionaire shall pay the Authority, on a monthly-basis, a fee (the ‘per-passenger fee’ or PPF) in respect of each passenger (both domestic and international) handled at the airport in accordance with the concession agreement,” as per the RFP document.