In its fourth attempt to modernise the airports at Ahmedabad and Jaipur, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) will float fresh tenders with revised parameters for partial privatisation after the previous bidding round yielded only one qualified bid.
“We received four bids for Ahmedabad airport and three for Mumbai airport but eventually there was only one qualified bidder for each of the airports,” said R. N. Choubey, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation.
“We will now re-bid the two airports and make the bids still more attractive by providing the entity responsibilities for operation and management (O&M) of airside and cargo in addition to terminal and city side,” he said. “We have also reworked the revenue model from a percentage of gross revenue to be given by the O&M provider to per passenger revenue,” he said.
In the earlier attempt, the AAI had offered the operation and management (O&M) of city side and terminal buildings for the two airports.
The airside comprises those parts of the airport that are not open to access by persons other than those who have been screened and duly authorised such as passengers and staff. Cityside refers to the part of the airport which is open to the public, including parking area.
Mr.Choubey said that the new bids will be invited by June 15. A month later, three more airports will be bid out on similar parameters.
‘Good model’
The senior official added that this was a good model for providing efficient services to passengers while ensuring that the ownership remained with the AAI.
There had been three attempts so far to attract private players for the two airports. In 2015, the AAI invited bids for complete privatisation of Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Jaipur airports but aborted the process.
This was followed by an attempt to rope in Singapore’s Changi Airport during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the island nation in November 2015. However, AAI twice rejected Changi Airport’s proposal to operate and maintain the Jaipur and the Ahmedabad airports on the grounds that it was “unfeasible” and not commercially viable for the government airport operator.
The AAI made yet another effort in 2016 when it placed a Request for Proposal (RFP) from bidders for operation and maintenance of “select areas” of the Jaipur and the Ahmedabad airports. Following a lukewarm response, several bidding parameters were revised and deadlines extended many times only to lead to just one qualified bidder.
