This will be funded through internal accruals of the parent company Adani Enterprises. The group operates airports in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati & Thiruvananthapuram.
“The current capacity of our airports is 10-11 crore passengers annually (CPA). This will be increased by up to three times. Lucknow has got a new terminal. Navi Mumbai will open next (by next March). Then Guwahati airport will get a new terminal. We are planning new terminals for Ahmedabad and Jaipur also. Overall, we are looking at a combined capacity of 25-30 CPA by 2040,” Karan, who is Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani’s son, said.
The capacity will grow in a phase-wise manner. Lucknow Airport’s new terminal, for instance, has a capacity of 80 lakh passengers per annum which will increase to 1.3 crore in the next phase and then 3.8 crore annually by 2035.
Why is the group so bullish on flyer numbers? “In coming times, we foresee non-metros bypassing hubs and providing flyers direct connectivity across the world. Their connectivity within the country will also improve,” he said. Direct international connectivity out of India to distant continents is primarily from the big metros. Tier II cities are connected to hubs nearby from where passengers take connecting flights to rest of the world now.
This plan to develop smaller airports as international hubs is in sync with govt’s plan to make Indian airports, with the network connectivity of airlines like Air India and IndiGo, the hub for transfer passengers.