Gautam Adani led Adani Group bagged the bid of five airports currently managed by the Airport Authority of India (AAI). Adani group bid aggressively for the privatization of these Airports by offering highest Per Passenger Fee (PEE). This marks the arrival of another private group in the aviation sector which until now was majorly a monopolistic market.
The five airports include Jaipur, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangalore. Now Adani Enterprises, the holding company of Adani group will be operating, managing and developing the concerned airports.
After the privatization of the five airports gets completed, their facilities would be handled by the Adani Enterprises for the next 50 years.
Adani group out-bid all the other bidders by big margins, like for Ahmedabad airport it offered ₹177 PPF, out-bidding National Infrastructure And Investment Fund (NIIF) which bid ₹146 PPF.
Similarly, for all other 4 airports Adani group was the highest bidder. For Lucknow it offered ₹171 PPF as against ₹131 PPF offered by AMP capitals. For the Mangalore airport its bid was about 2.5 times higher then the bid of second bidder. Adani group and GMR were the only bidder which took part in bidding for all the six airports.
Also, the Guwahati airport for which only Adani and GMR group submitted their respective bid, was not concluded because of its privatization case already pending in the Guhawati High court.
As per the industry experts, such aggressive bid manifest Adani’s eagerness to enter the Indian aviation space.
Adani group said it would scale up the infrastructure at these airports. “The Indian aviation industry is a growing sector with the government’s continuing focus on creating world class airports. We would be aiming to scale up the infrastructure to bring these facilities on par with global standards,” an Adani group spokesperson said.
Now the entry of big group’s like Adani enterprises in the aviation sector will surely increase the competition in somewhat monopolistic Indian aviation space, which would ultimately benefit the passengers.