In a relief to passengers flying from Chennai and Kolkata, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has directed the Airports Authority of India (AAI) not to impose any airport development fee (ADF).
The State-owned airports planned to levy an ADF of Rs 300 on each passenger departing on a domestic flight and Rs 1,000 on every passenger catching an international flight.
The proposal had been approved by the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA), the independent airport regulator appointed by the Government to look at airport charges.
AERA will now determine only user development fee (UDF) and other tariffs, such as landing and parking charges, and no ADF will be charged from passengers flying from Kolkata and Chennai airports, even after modernisation is complete.
Modernisation
Modernisation and expansion of Kolkata and Chennai airports are taking place at a cost of Rs 2,325 crore and Rs 2,015 crore, respectively.
In a consultation paper on ADF proposals put up in the public domain, AERA officials warned that any delay in levying the charges would result in passengers paying more to travel through the two airports at a later date.
No extra burden
On Friday, the Ministry of Civil Aviation issued a statement saying that AAI had now submitted proposals to AERA without incorporating ADF. “The directive on ADF is in line with the stated objective of the Government to make air travel affordable and to ensure that passengers are not subjected to any extra burden,” it added.
Incidentally, passengers taking a domestic flight from Delhi now pay Rs 200 while international flyers are charged Rs 1,300. Similarly, Mumbai charges Rs 100 from each domestic passenger and Rs 600 from an international traveller.
The airports in both the metro cities are being modernised by a consortium headed by private company.
In Delhi, the Bangalore-based GMR Group leads the consortium while a GVK-led team is undertaking the modernisation of Mumbai airport.
Officials of neither AAI nor AERA were available for comments.