On Tuesday, Ahmedabad based Indian Multinational Conglomerate Adani group announced that its subsidiary- Adani Airport Holdings Ltd. (AAHL) has undertaken the management and charge of Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) from the GVK Group after the MIAL Board Meeting.
The company has already obtained the required approvals from the Government of India, the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) of Maharashtra, and the Government of Maharashtra.
On this, the founder of Adani Group Gautam Adani said: “We are delighted to take over management of the world-class Mumbai International Airport. We promise to make Mumbai proud. The Adani Group will build an airport ecosystem of the future for business, leisure, and entertainment. We will create thousands of new local jobs.”
The company’ statement read “With India becoming to be the world’s third-largest aviation market by 2024, the addition of the Mumbai International Airport to the Adani Group’s existing portfolio of six airports, and thereafter the operationalization of the greenfield Navi Mumbai International Airport Limited (NMIAL) provides a transformational aviation platform allowing the Adani Group to interlink its B2B and B2C business as well as create several strategic adjacencies for the Group’s other B2B businesses.”
AAHL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, which earlier this year acquired a 23.5 per cent stake in the Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) from ACSA Global (ACSA) and Bid Services Division (Mauritius), or Bidvest, for a whopping Rs 1,685.25 crore.
The acquisition of stake was a part of the Adani Group’s plan to have a controlling stake in MIAL.
The construction of the Navi Mumbai International Airport by AAHL will begin in the next month and financial closure will be completed in the next 90 days. This newly constructed international airport will be commissioned in 2024.
“Our larger objective is to reinvent airports as ecosystems that drive local economic development and act as the nuclei around which we can catalyse aviation-linked businesses. These include metropolitan developments that span entertainment facilities, e-commerce and logistics capabilities, aviation dependent industries, smart city developments, and other innovative business concepts,” said Gautam Adani.
He further said: “Our airport expansion strategy is intended to help converge our nation’s Tier 1 cities with the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in a hub and spoke model. This is fundamental to enabling a greater equalization of India’s urban-rural divide, as well as making international travel seamless and smooth. I believe that the economic value that cities create will be maximized around airports and the cities of tomorrow will be built with the airport as the focal point. This is a fundamental lever for modern world development and the rapid build-out of our airport infrastructure will create multiple employment structures that generate thousands of new job opportunities.”
Earlier in 2019, the AAHL got the approval to modernize and operate six airports – Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram for 50 years through a tendering process conducted by the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
Out of these, the company took over operations of Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru airports in 2020.
In addition to this, the company also acquired a majority stake in Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) with rights to develop the Navi Mumbai International Airport.