Adani's Rs 60,000 crore investment to expand 7 airports in 10 years

Capex separate from Rs 18K crore announced for Navi Mumbai Airport Phase-I

The Adani group is planning to invest Rs 60,000 crore in its seven existing airports over the next five to 10 years to enhance their capacity and revenue-generating potential.
 

Adani Airports Holdings (AAHL) Chief Executive Officer Arun Bansal said Rs 30,000 crore will be spent on the ‘airside’ in the next five years, while another Rs 30,000 crore will be allocated to the ‘cityside’ in the next five to 10 years at its seven existing airports: Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Guwahati, Jaipur, and Thiruvananthapuram.
 

The capital expenditure (capex) of Rs 60,000 crore does not include the Rs 18,000 crore allocated for the Phase-I development of the Navi Mumbai airport, scheduled to commence operations by March 2025, clarified Bansal.
 

‘Airside’ refers to the secure area of the airport accessible only to passengers with boarding passes, while ‘cityside’ or ‘landside’ is the public area of the airport accessible to anyone.
 

“It is a huge amount, but Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL) will support it through internal accruals. We are a startup operating under AEL, so AEL will fund it for us,” he said during a press briefing after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new terminal at the Lucknow airport on Sunday. Concerning the cityside of its existing airports, the Adani group aspires to create integrated cities, including hotels, convention centres, retail outlets, and food and beverage establishments, noted Bansal. Bansal explained the reasons for the five-10-year timeline for cityside development.
 

“Cityside development requires environmental clearance, land clearance, etc. At some of our airports, our lands have been encroached for different purposes, so we need to get it cleared. We need to get the master plan approved by the Airports Authority of India (AAI). Once all that is done, we will expedite. Wherever the approvals are available, we are starting at a small scale... If these approvals come faster, we will do it in the next five years,” he said.
 

He highlighted that there is no limitation on funding for cityside development, but rather a limitation on the availability of all the required approvals to initiate work. Bansal explained that all Adani-run airports were, at some point, away from the city, but this is no longer the case.
 

In cities like Ahmedabad and Jaipur, there are limited options for weekend getaways. However, due to the central location of the airports within these cities, there is ample opportunity for cityside development, he noted.
 

The capex plan for the phase one development of the Navi Mumbai airport is Rs 18,000 crore.
 

“It will be ready by March 2025. We have already started planning the construction of Terminal 2 and the second runway (under Phase II development) there. The budget for Phase II development has not been worked out yet. We are working on the master plan. We will provide the quantum of investment for the Phase II development in the next couple of months,” he said.
 

In 2022, the Adani group unveiled its plans for cityside development at its airports, including establishing aquaria at five locations, Legoland theme parks at three locations, and virtual reality parks at five locations. It also plans to set up rainforest cafés at five locations and Madame Tussauds wax museums at two locations. Twenty-one hotels — six five-star, 10 four-star, and five three-star hotels — will be developed in a 5.1 million square feet area. Six hospitals with 2,200 beds, multiplexes with a total of 66 screens, and nine food and beverage zones will also be developed, according to the announcement.
 

In February 2019, the Centre privatised six major airports — Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati.
 

After a competitive bidding process, the Adani group secured the rights to run all of them for 50 years. AAHL took control of these airports between October 2020 and November 2021.
 

In August 2020, the group acquired a 74 per cent stake from GVK group in Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) — the operator of Mumbai airport. The conglomerate took control of Mumbai airport in July 2021. MIAL owns NMIAL, which is currently constructing the Navi Mumbai airport.
 

In the April-January period of the current financial year, the Adani group’s seven existing airports handled a total of 56.58 million domestic passengers, recording a year-on-year growth of 20.1 per cent, according to AAI.