Nearly three-quarters of airports in India ran a loss last year

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Nearly three-quarters of airports in India ran a loss last year

  • As many as 94 airports out of the 129 airports owned and managed by Airports Authority of India (AAI) were in red in FY 2017-18.
  • The situation was similar in the fiscal 2016-17 when AAI reported that 90% of their airports were in loss.
  • The revenue of the airports isn’t adequate to balance out their high operating costs.
Airports in India seem to be struggling financially for quite some time now.
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India’s Civil Aviation Minister, Suresh Prabhu, said that three-fourths of the airports handled by Airports Authority of India (AAI) were running in loss in fiscal 2017-18.

However, AAI has been taking several steps to make these airports profitable, reported Press Trust of India.

As many as 94 airports out of the 129 airports owned and managed by AAI reported losses last year mainly because they weren’t able to make enough revenue to balance out their total expenditure.

The situation is no different from the previous fiscal year. In 2016-17, over 90% of the airports owned by Airports Authority of India reported losses. Further, only eight airports were profitable, reported The New Indian Express citing government data.

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The government has tried to help the aviation sector in part by leasing out six airports under the Public Private Partnership model. The approval of privatisation of these airports is likely to enhance the revenue to AAI and increase the economic development in the concerned areas in terms of job creation and related infrastructure.

The financial state of the airports is a major setback for the Indian government which is trying to develop airports across countries through its regional connectivity scheme (RCS), pointed out, Financial Express.
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