GVK, Cidco set 2021-end as deadline for Navi Mumbai airport's first flight

While Maharashtra has been keen to make airport operational by December 2019, Cidco-GVK concession agreement extends launch timeframe by two years

The City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) and the GVK group have set 2021-end as a deadline for the commercial launch of the Navi Mumbai airport.

The two parties signed the concession agreement for the Navi Mumbai airport on Monday.  The GVK group won the bid to construct the airport last February but the award letter was issued only in October.

While the state government has been keen to make the Navi Mumbai airport operational by December 2019,  the concession agreement signed today extends the launch timeframe by two years.

As per the  agreement, the commercial date of operations of the first phase of the Rs 160 billion airport has been fixed at 1,245 days from the financial closure date.  The financial closure will be done six months from now which means that that the target date for launch is 2021-end. The commercial date of operations is subject to the timely completion of pre-development activities such as land fill and reclamation.

The airport will have annual capacity of ten million passengers in its first phase and is being jointly developed by GVK group-run  Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) and Cidco. While MIAL owns 74 per Cidco holds  26 per cent in the company developing the project. The initial concession period is 30 years which extendable for further ten years.

The airport development company will pay 12.6 per cent of its gross revenue and a concession fee ranging Rs 50 million to Rs 12.50 billion over period of sixty years to Cidco.

“Our plan is to complete the first runway by December 2019 and second runway by mid-2020. Operationalising an airport takes time and there are several clearances required including from International Civil Aviation Organisation. The three year time frame for launch is the upper limit,” Cidco vice chairman Bhushan Gagrani said.

“We have submitted an interim master plan and the final plan will be done in three months,” said a GVK group spokesperson.

In a statement MIAL's executive chairman GVK Reddy said  “ We are delighted that GVK has got the opportunity to yet again display its technical and management prowess in the airports sector for developing and managing the Navi Mumbai International Airport.”