On October 11, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) handed over the responsibilities of the Jaipur International Airport to Adani Group. The group will manage the Airport for 50 years. JS Balhara, Airport Director, handed over the Airport’s symbolic key to Vishnu Jha, Chief Airport Officer Adani Jaipur International Ltd. Balhara said that the company would handle the operations, management and development of the Airport under the PPP model.
Notably, two months ago, the company had started an observation program at the Jaipur Airport to gather details about the functioning of the Airport. Out of 250 employees, 150 have been absorbed by the Adani Group, reports suggest.
In 2018, Adani Group had won the bid to ‘operate, manage and develop’ the Jaipur airport along with that of Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram, Guwahati and Mangaluru for a period of 50 years. Adani Group had won the bids by offering the highest amounts towards per-passenger fee (PPF), and its offered PPF for Jaipur was ₹174, while GMR had offered only ₹69 for the airport.
Jaipur International Airport is located in the southern suburb of Sanganer, around 13 km from Jaipur in Congress-ruled Rajasthan. The airport was granted the status of an international airport in December 2005. The civil apron of the airport can accommodate 14 aircraft and the new terminal building can handle up to 1,000 passengers at a time. Its 3,407-meter long runway can handle larger aircraft like Boeing 747 and Boeing 777, and it is CAT-IIIB instrument landing system (ILS) compliant. The airport has two terminals, Terminal 1 handles domestic flights as well as Hajj flights. Terminal 2 is used for international flights.
Adani Group will take over the operations at Thiruvananthapuram International Airport from October 14, 2021. The Ahmedabad-based business conglomerate had delayed taking over Jaipur Airport and had sought a six-month extension till December 2021 to take over Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram airports, citing the restrictions arising out of the covid-19 pandemic. But the government had given it three months to take over the management. The airports at Mangaluru, Ahmedabad, and Lucknow were already handed over to the company on October 31, November 2 and November 7, respectively. The group had taken over the Guwahati airport on October 8.
Therefore, after taking over Thiruvananthapuram International Airport, the Adani Group will complete the process of taking control of all six airports if had won. The group also manages the Mumbai airport, after it bought stakes in the companies that operate the airport in July this year.
