New Delhi, July 18 Zurich Airport International is actively following the asset monetizing program of the Central Government. However, its current focus remains on the “on-time delivery of the Noida International Airport” by the last quarter of 2024, Christoph Schnellmann, CEO of Yamuna International Airport Pvt Ltd and representative of Zurich Airport International , said.
Yamuna International Pvt Ltd is the special entity set up to build, operate, manage and run the upcoming Noida International Airport at Jewar, a few kilometers off Noida in Uttar Pradesh.
Zurich Airport International, apart from managing Switzerland’s Zurich Airport – the largest in the country – also manages eight other airports across different countries, primarily Lat-Am nations, which include Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Curacao. The two focus markets for Zurich Airport International are India and Brazil.
Traffic rebounds post-Covid
According to Schnellmann, the privatization program in India is on track and the regulatory policies in place are evident from “privatization of Air India”.
New airlines are coming in, while older ones are making a come-back indicating “strong demand and growth potential” in the country’s aviation sector.
India’s domestic air traffic, post Covid has seen a strong rebound, and the “sector is expected to witness full recovery by FY23-end”. International travel has begun and is picking up, although slow at the moment, the pent-up demand is quite visible and should see “further improvement in the later half of the year”.
“In future, we are open to exploring development of other airports in India, but right now our focus in on-time delivery of the Noida International Airport. Delivery time continues to be last quarter of 2024 and we are on-course for timely delivery,” he told BusinessLine.
In the first phase, Noida International Airport will have an annual passenger handling capacity of 12 million, with one runway and one terminal building by 2024. There is a 40-year concession agreement which allows the operator to scale up the airport with a second runway and terminal building across 1,334 hectares and an overall passenger handling capacity of 70 million.
The government is looking at acquiring additional land for future expansion of the airport.
‘No cost over-run’
According to Schnellmann, there is “no cost over-run” that is expected to hit the project at the moment.
The entity, Yamuna International Private Ltd, achieved financial closure for the ₹5,730 crore with nearly 65 per cent of the project cost or ₹3,700 crore-odd (Noida airport instead Jewar airport) having a debt financing by the State Bank of India and the remaining 35 per cent coming from Zurich Airport Group.
This incidentally, is Zurich Airport International’s single largest foreign investment.
“We do understand that there are factors like inflation that are playing out. But we do not see any time or cost over-run at the moment. Even the contract we have with Tata Projects – for development of the airport – is on a fixed term – fixed cost basis; and we don’t anticipate a cost over-run there,” he said.
Tata Projects has won the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the greenfield airport. The infrastructure major will construct the terminal, runway, airside infrastructure, roads, utilities, landside facilities and other ancillary buildings there.