Changi seeks more info on Jaipur, Ahmedabad airports

Singapore's Changi Airport has sought more details from the Airports Authority of India before taking a call on the proposed limited operations and management contracts for Jaipur and Ahmedabad airports.
After taking off four AAI run airports -- Kolkata, Chennai, Jaipur and Ahmedabad from its privatisation agenda, the NDA government had last year decided to hand over Jaipur and Ahmedabad airport to Changi under a limited O&M contract.
The documents containing more details on the two airports are likely to be furnished within this week to Changi, a senior AAI official said.
Owned by Singapore Government, Changi is world's seventh busiest airport, having handled 55.4 million passengers and over 3.46 lakh aircraft movements in 2015.

"A team from Changi has already visited both Ahmedabad and Jaipur airports. As part of the due-diligence exercise, it has sought more details," the official said.
After getting the required details, Changi is expected to finalise its proposal in the coming months, the official added.

AAI and Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE) had, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Singapore last November, signed the MoU to co-operate in planning and development of Ahmedabad and Jaipur airports besides other aspects including traffic and commercial development, service quality and operations and management.
The Government also accorded its approval to the pact late last month.

"Globally, limited O&M contract models are prevalent for the entire airport operations. The AAI has no previous experience in awarding O&M contract model of terminal buildings to other entities...In order to implement the decision, it was necessary to ensure that a suitable entity be engaged for undertaking the O&M contract at Ahmedabad and Jaipur airports," Government had said while giving its nod to the MoU.
The city side and air side of Ahmedabad and Jaipur airports, however, will continue to be managed directly by AAI.
By 2023-24, Ahmedabad is expected to see a total of 6.77 million passengers while that at Jaipur is anticipated to be 3.75 million.

This is the first time that the Government has taken onboard an overseas entity to "partially" operate and manage its airports.