Hyd airport may post profit in '12

Likely to register Rs 500 cr revenues this financial year

The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) at Shamshabad here, which has bagged the first position in the 5 -15 million passenger capacity airports in the world, is expecting to post operating profits in a span of two years.

The greenfield airport, developed and operated by GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL), is expected to post a revenue of Rs 500 crore during the current financial year. Its revenues last fiscal stood at Rs 412 crore.

According to GHIAL chief executive officer P Sripathy, the global slowdown had delayed the break even of the airport, which began operations in February 2008. The project was built at an estimated cost of Rs 2,500 crore. In two years, it has handled 6.4 million passengers.

GHIAL’s maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility at the airport, being set up as a 50-50 joint venture with Malaysian Aerospace Engineering, is expected to be operational by April next year. The airport has also begun efforts to monetise land and other resources and its impact on the revenues would be visible shortly, a top official of the company said.

The Airports Council International, an autonomous body that undertakes the airport service quality survey (ASQ), has ranked RGIA as first in the 5- 15 million passengers category, fifth among all airports worldwide and also fifth in the Asia Pacific region in its ratings.

The airport participated in the ranking in the first year of its operations and secured the top slot in two years. It achieved a score of 4.4 on a scale of 1 to 5, Sripathy said.

Security
Even as mediapersons were allowed to visit the airport, security personnel there, including those from the Central Industry Security Force, were seen wearing photo identity cards (PIC) that expired on December 31.

When asked about security concerns, GHIAL chief operating officer Rajinder Zalpuri said the situation was the same at all the airports across the country and RGIA was no exception.

He said the airport had not received new PICs from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), the apex agency responsible for security at the airports. It may be recalled that the aviation ministry had alerted all the airports in the country in January in view of the intelligence input on a possible hijack attempt.

He said the bureau had indicated in an earlier communication that the PICs would be valid till March 31 this year. “The PICs are not given for reason best know to BCAS,” he said.