Adani Airport Holdings Ltd (AAHL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Ltd, has taken over the management control of Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) from the GVK group.
The company has received the approvals from the Centre, the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) of Maharashtra and the state government. MIAL is India’s second busiest airport by both passenger and cargo traffic.
The Adanis now have eight airports under its wings, making them India’s largest player accounting for 25 per cent of footfalls. With the addition of MIAL, Adani Airports will also control 33 per cent of the country’s air cargo traffic.
Adani said post-pandemic demand for air travel in India and the rest of the world was expected to surge.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects global passenger traffic to recover to 88 per cent of pre-Covid levels by 2022 and exceed the levels in 2023.
Adani Airports has forecast its share of passenger traffic to grow to 100 million by the end of next fiscal from 80 million in 2019-20 on the basis of 12 per cent compounded annual growth rate of traffic.
Adani will begin the construction of the Navi Mumbai International Airport next month and complete the financial closure in the next 90 days. The new 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, ecommerce and logistics capabilities, aviation dependent industries, smart city developments, and other innovative business concepts,” Gautam Adani, chairman, Adani Group, said.
He said the group’s airport expansion strategy was intended to integrate India’s larger cities with the smaller ones in a hub-and-spoke model.
In February this year, AAHL which is the flagship holding company of the group for its airports business has acquired additional 23 per cent stake in MIAL from ACSA Global Ltd (ACSA) and Bid Services Division (Mauritius) Ltd or Bidvest for Rs 1684.25 crore.
