GMR expects tariff hike at Delhi airport in 2012

GMR Group expects the airport regulator to approve its proposal to revise user tariffs at the Delhi International Airport in early 2012.

"We are expecting (that) between January and March, 2012, we should have final approval in place," Sidharath Kapur, the Chief Financial Officer of GMR Airports -- the operator of the Delhi International Airport -- told reporters here.

He said the Bangalore-headquartered group applied for a tariff revision in June to the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA), which is now expected to evaluate the proposal through a consultative process.

Company officials declined to reveal the extent of the revision that GMR Airports has sought.

According to Kapur, under the concession document, GMR was entitled for an increase in user tariffs from 2009 onward. "So losses of 2009 and later will be accounted while computing the increase. Increase is going to be prospective, but it will take into account the losses of the past.

"The increase will be given in such a way that it will enable us to recover the past losses. That's what we are entitled," he added.

Kapur said that except for a 10 per cent rise in 2008, tariffs have not been revised since 2001, despite a four-fold increase in passenger traffic in the past decade. Furthermore, the Delhi airport has gone through through structural changes and grown in size, entailing sizeable capital expenditure.

Hit by higher interest outgo, GMR Infrastructure yesterday reported a consolidated loss of Rs 62.53 crore for the July-September quarter.

According to Group CFO Subbarao Amarthaluru, the Delhi airport is causing the company a loss of Rs 600-700 crore on an annualised basis. "Even today, if you exclude Delhi airport, we are profitable," he said.

The airports business of GMR, which also has interests in energy, highways and urban infrastructure, consists of two airports in India -- at Delhi and Hyderabad -- besides one at Istanbul, in Turkey, and one at Male, in the Maldives.

GMR, which had put in an expression of interest for the Zagreb airport in Croatia, is no longer pursuing it for reasons "entirely economic", Kapur added.