Flying out of Delhi’s IGI Airport to become costlier

With Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) planning to to impose a new charge on passengers to survive the Covid-induced downturn , flying out of the national capital could soon cost more. DIAL has requested regulatory approval to charge Rs 200 and Rs 300 from every domestic and international outbound passenger, respectively till March 2024.

DIAL had already petitioned the aviation ministry last week to “direct” AERA to factor in the Covid impact on its revenue while determining the airport’s tariffs, and  had warned of a “serious cash-flow deficit situation”, which would make it “difficult to continue airport operations”.
DIAL’s comments were asked for and awaited till going to press.

Similarly, Mumbai Airport’s plea to charge Rs 200 and Rs 500 from every departing domestic and international passenger, respectively, as ad hoc user development fee (UDF) is already being considered by under AERA. However the airports of Hyderabad and Kochi are not seeking any interim charge as of now to mitigate Covid’s damaging impact on aviation.

In a letter sent to the Union Civil Aviation Ministry last week, the DIAL management said that it anticipated a shortfall or loss of Rs 3,538 crore from April 2020 to March 2024. It was also informed to the government about the suffering of a cash loss of Rs 419 crore in April-September 2020 (H1) and projected a loss of Rs 939 crore in the Covid-ravaged FY 2020-21. The airport, which saw 70 million passengers in FY 2019-20 and expects less than 20 million this fiscal, has projected that losses like these will continue till FY 2024.

Both international and domestic, travel has been the first victims of the Covid pandemic. The impact on the number of overall travellers , revenues for aviation stakeholders like airlines, airports, flight caterers and ground handlers have been seen plummeting.

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