The new international terminal at the Trivandrum airport may start commercial operations without any inauguration ceremony. The Kerala government wants Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to inaugurate the terminal but the PM has not been able to find time for the occasion.
“We are looking at starting commercial operations without any inauguration ceremony but there are some other issues to be resolved and the moment they are resolved, we will take a call on the operations,” said a senior AAI (Airports Authority of India) official, who did not want to be identified.
The international terminal of the AAI-run airport was to start commercial operations from July 16.
“The inauguration has been delayed due to non-availability of time with the PM, thus, hampering our revenue generation. We plan to start operations and PM will dedicate the terminal to the nation whenever he gets time,” said another AAI official on condition of anonymity.
The new terminal has been built by AAI at a cost of Rs 289 crore and has received permission to charge a user development fee (UDF) of Rs 755 per departing international passenger for 10 years.
AAI expects to increase its revenue by Rs 150 crore through development fees. The state-owned airport operator has been charging UDF at Jaipur and Ahmedabad airports and plans to levy the same at Udaipur, Amritsar, Mangalore, Varanasi, Visakhapatnam and Trichy airports.
The Trivandrum airport caters to 2.4 million passengers a year, out of which 75 per cent are international passengers who will pay UDF. The traffic at the airport grew by 13 per cent last year and the new terminal has a capacity of handling 13 million passengers annually.
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The permission to levy UDF at the new terminal has been opposed by the state government on the ground that international passengers leaving the Trivandrum airport are poor people and any extra charge would be too much for them.
Meanwhile, there is a proposal to also shift the domestic operations to the new international terminal as the new terminal has enough passenger-handling capacity.
“The shift will save around Rs 6 crore annually for AAI and will also benefit airlines. But no decision in this regard has been taken yet,” said one of the AAI officials quoted above.