Adani Group to invest Rs60,000 crore in airports business in 10 years

The Adani Group has proposed Rs60,000 crore capital expenditure in the construction of greenfield airports and expansion and development of existing airports over the next 5-10 years, Karan Adani, managing director and chief executive of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd, has said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the inauguration of a new terminal at Lucknow airport by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Adani said the proposed investment in airport business does not include the Rs18,000 crore the company has invested in developing the Navi Mumbai airport (first phase).

Adani currently operates seven airports across the country, including the Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram airports. 

Some of these airports need major investments in expansion of terminal and runway capacity in order to cater to expanding traffic.

This will take half of the proposed Rs60,000 crore investment over the next five years while the remaining would go to city-side development of the airports over the next 10 years, Adani said.

Adani said funds for the projects would mainly come from parent company Adani Enterprises Ltd, adding that the group is yet to decide on listing the subsidiary Adani Airport Holdings Limited.

The Adani group acquired the Mumbai airport from the GVK group in 2021 while the other six airports are under a 5-year lease from the Airports Authority of India.

Prime Minister Modi on Sunday inaugurated several airport projects worth a combined Rs9,800 crore, including new terminal buildings of Pune, Kolhapur, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Delhi, Lucknow, Aligarh, Azamgarh, Chitrakoot, Moradabad, Shravasti and Adampur, via video conferencing from Azamgarh in UP. He also laid the foundation stones for new terminal buildings for Kadapa, Hubballi and Belagavi airports.

Adani said the plans are in line with the expected growth in air passengers in the country, which is expected to grow three-fold from the current 110 million passengers annually. 

Along with the Lucknow and Navi Mumbai airports Adani is planning to build new terminals at Guwahati, Ahmedabad and Jaipur, which would take overall capacity to 300 million passenger annually, Adani added.