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Finally, starting midnight Adani Group to takeover Thiruvananthapuram airport
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SME Times News Bureau | 13 Oct, 2021
Almost a year after the State government suffered a big setback when
the Kerala High Court dismissed their plea against Centre's move to
lease out Thiruvananthapuram international airport to Adani Group,
starting midnight Thursday, the running of the airport here will be
handed over to the Adani Group by the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
This
airport, which was declared as the fifth international airport in the
country in 1991, will now be run by the Adani Group for the next five
decades.
In February 2019, the financial bid for privatising five airports in the country was opened and it was won by Adani Enterprises.
The other airports that the Adani firm got are situated in Mangaluru, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Jaipur.
The
Kerala government too placed a bid, but the Adani firm won it by
quoting a bigger amount. While the Kerala government bid for Rs 135 per
passenger, the Adani firm quoted Rs 168.
After losing the bid,
the Kerala government approached the Kerala High Court, but failed to
get a favourable direction, following which they along with the Airport
Employees Union approached the Supreme court and the case is going on.
Consequent
to the takeover, for the next three years the employees of the AAI
along with the Adani's will run the airport, after which they can either
become part of the new group or get transferred to any of the other
airports of the AAI.
Speaking to IANS, an airline official on
condition of anonymity said what Adani needs to concentrate on is to
increase the connectivity and the number of flights.
"As of now
the present international airport terminal has facilities, which
includes four aero bridges. The need of the hour is there are two
terminals here. Terminal one sees the arrival of few domestic aircrafts,
while terminal two has both international and domestic. The best idea
would be to see that all the flights are handled from terminal two and
leave the terminal one exclusively for cargo aircrafts," said the
official who has worked in a few international airports in the country.
He
also added that since Air India has now been taken over by Tata's, one
will have to wait and see how much pressure the Adani's can put on
Tata's.
"If this airport has to become really successful, Adani's
should ensure there are direct flights from here to Europe, the US and
to Australia through Singapore. After the Covid pandemic struck, flights
to Singapore have not happened. Singapore is a crucial hub," added the
official, who did not wish to be identified.
Incidentally, for
the Adani's, they have the added advantage of building the Vizhinjam
international seaport, which is coming up a few kilometres from the
airport and one has to wait and see how best they are going to use it.
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Customs Exchange Rates |
Currency |
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