Apples to airports conglomerate Adani Group has said that it may be looking at acquiring more airports as part of expanding its footprint in the world’s fastest-growing aviation market.
“We need to see the conditions of the request for quotation (RFQ), we need to see how the tariff will be applied and we will need to see how the capex will be applied. And only if it makes financial sense, will we put in a bid,” Arun Bansal, CEO of Adani Airport Holdings said Wednesday on the sidelines of the aviation summit hosted by the think tank CAPA India in New Delhi.
Out of the 25 airports identified for privatisation, the government intends floating tenders for 11 in the first phase of the bidding.
Asked how Adani Airports will be strategising to maximise the proposed synergies between two city airport pairs, Bansal said: “We need to study the bid document once it comes out to see how the pairing will be filed for the main and the smaller airports.”
In the next round of airport privatisation the government is planning to pair smaller airports with larger, more profitable ones.
Saying the group will work out a strategy only after thoroughly reviewing the tender document, Bansal remarked, “Our strategy is simple, to create a scale [of operations]. If the bid condition is right, we will bid.”
Given the rapid growth in air passenger traffic this financial year to pre-pandemic levels, operationalisation of new airports and with over 30 cities getting dual airports over the course of time, air passenger traffic will touch 1 billion by 2040, with passenger traffic growing at a CAGR of 8.5 percent over the next 20 years, according to estimates compiled by Adani Airport Holdings.
“The growth will not only be in the airports in Delhi or Mumbai or Kolkata or Bengaluru, but it will also be at regional airports,” said Bansal.
He further added that the expansion in the portfolio of airport projects by the company would result in their handling 350 million passengers annually in the next ten years.
In the last auction held in February 2019, Adani Group won the concessions for airports in Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangaluru.