GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL) today said that it was likely to break even by March 2011, three years ahead of its earlier projected year of 2014.
“With new initiatives and increased user development fee (UDF), we hope to break even perhaps in this year itself. There is a fair chance,” said P Sripathy, chief executive officer, GHIAL, but declined to give specific figures. He was speaking on the sidelines of the inauguration of ‘Pharma Zone’, a dedicated cargo handling zone for pharma products here.
The key factors aiding break even are the increased passenger traffic, UDF and cargo revenues, apart from the turn-up of passenger growth, he said.
The airport registered 19 per cent increase in passenger traffic from 6.28 million last year to 7.5 million passengers this year till now. In 2008, it was 5.6 million. Revenue generation from the air cargo segment is up 26 per cent from last year. The advertising and marketing fee is another key driver for the revenue growth.
GHIAL had increased its UDF from November 8, charging Rs 475 from domestic outbound travellers and Rs 1,875 from international outbound travellers. It earlier collected Rs 375 from and Rs 1,000 from domestic and international passengers respectively.
Free Trade and Warehousing Zone
The company is setting up India’s first airport-based free trade and warehousing zone (FTWZ), which will be functional in the next 2-3 months, at Hyderabad.
“We are already notified with 19.8 acres of land and are in the process of getting another 250 acre for the zone,” said Hemanth DP, chief operating officer, GHIAL.
The investment in the zone would depend upon the customers. “It will differ according to the requirement of the third party logistics players, depending on what merchandise they promote. Currently, we are in talks with 30-40 logistics players,” he said.
The proposed maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility, in association with GHIAL and Malaysia Airlines, would be ready by June 2011, he said.
