107 of AAI-operated airports record losses in FY21

In FY20, as many as 91 AAI-operated airports reported losses with total loss during the year standing at ₹1,368.82 crore, according to the data submitted by V. K. Singh, minister of state for civil aviation at the lower house of the Parliament.

In comparison, during 2018-19, a total of 101 AAI-operated airports were making losses. Overall losses reported by these airports stood at ₹1,668.69 crore during the year.

Moreover, at least 18 of its airports were not operational during 2018-19, while 19 of them were not operational during 2019-20. While most of these airports are fully owned by the AAI, in select airports the operator owns a stake via joint venture. These include airports in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Nagpur, Hyderabad and Kannur.

Profit/loss data for GMR-operated Hyderabad airport, and Fairfax India Holding-led joint venture that operates the Bengaluru airport was not available.

According to the data submitted by Singh, most tier-one and tier-two airports remained loss-making during the last three years. For instance, popular tier-two airports such as Bhopal, Aurangabad, Belgaum, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Delhi (Safdarjung), Dimapur, Dibrugarh, Gaya, Hubli and Imphal were all making losses during 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21.

Other prominent airports like Kolkata, Trivandrum, Varanasi, Mumbai, New Delhi, Leh, Lucknow, Jaipur, Ranchi, Vadodara, Vijayawada, Pekyong, Udaipur, Surat, Rajahmundry, Madurai and Mangalore reported losses during 2020-21, while reporting some profit during one or both of the previous years.

For instance, the country’s busiest airport, New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) reported a loss of ₹111.77 crore during 2018-19, followed by a profit of ₹13.15 crore during 2019-20 and then a loss of ₹317.41 crore during 2020-21.

Similarly, the country’s second busiest airport in Mumbai, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) reported a profit of ₹96.1 crore during 2018-19, followed by a profit of ₹2.54 crore during 2019-20 and a loss of ₹384.81 crore during 2020-21.

The Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport at Kolkata reported a profit of ₹461.19 crore during 2018-19; a profit of ₹545.07 crore during 2019-20; and a loss of ₹31.04 crore during 2020-21.

The AAI-operated Goa Airport reported profits of ₹137.48 crore and ₹146.87 crore during 2018-19 and 2019-20 respectively. The airport however reported losses to the tune of ₹65.75 crore during 2020-21.

Meanwhile, Pune airport was one of the few airports to report profit during the last three years. The airport reported a profit of ₹174.05 crore during 2018-19, a profit of ₹123.13 crore during 2019-20, and a profit of ₹16.09 crore during 2020-21.

Interestingly, most regional airports continue to be loss-making since 2018-19 despite the government’s push to connect smaller airports through the regional connectivity scheme.

As of 31 May, 2021, only 47% of total routes and 39% of airports (unserved and underserved) have been operationalized under UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik) scheme that has been implemented by the government to enhance regional connectivity, rating agency Icra Ltd said in a 20 July report.

“The number of new RCS routes which started operations increased at a healthy pace and stood at 102 and 120 routes in FY2019 and FY2020 respectively, but have declined to 77 new routes in FY2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic,” it added

According to Icra, the airport sector is likely to incur a net loss of ₹5,400 crore in financial year 2021 because of a sharp decline in passenger traffic following the coronavirus outbreak.

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