Passengers departing from Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) will have to pay a higher User Development Fee (UDF) from November 1, 2010 as Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) yesterday issued an order to this effect.  

AERA has revised the UDF for embarking domestic passengers to Rs 430 and that for international passengers to Rs 1, 700. This has been done on an ad-hoc basis for traffic figures of five years (2008-09 to 2012-13). However, the airport operator doesn’t seem to be satisfied with the order. “The hike is below our expectations,” said Sidharath Kapur, Chief Financial Officer-Airports, GMR Group. 

GMR Hyderabad International Airport (GHIAL) had sought permission from AERA to increase these charges to Rs 500 for domestic and Rs 2, 825 for international departures (excluding tax). Presently, GHIAL charges Rs 350 for domestic and Rs 1,000 for international passenger departures. 

GHIAL projected that if there was no hike in UDF and aeronautical charges and the landing charges were also not levied, it would incur a net loss of Rs 98.08 crore in 2010-11, Rs 76.4 crore in 2011-12 and Rs 45.39 crore in 2012-13. “The UDF hike will stem large amount of losses definitely, but to what extent I can’t assess at this point of time,” added Kapur.  

According to Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), AERA’s decision is along expected lines as the Hyderabad Airport is driven by domestic traffic and lesser by international traffic. “Given that AERA is sensitive towards consumers benefit, it was expected that UDF for domestic passengers will be modestly hiked compared to that for international ones,” said Kapil Kaul, CEO, South Asia, CAPA.