As reported by Mint, on August 5, civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia told Lok Sabha that the Adani Group was granted an extension of ninety days to take over three major airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram.
Moreover, he said that the Ahmedabad-based company had taken over airports at Mangaluru, Ahmedabad and Lucknow on October 31, November 2 and November 7 respectively.
The Group had sought six months additional time till December 2021 from the government-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) for the acquisition of airports affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scindia wrote in response, “The revenue from the remaining airports viz. Guwahati, Jaipur and Thiruvananthapuram will continue to be received by AAI till the handing over of these airports to the concessionaire (Adani Group).
The wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited, i.e., Adani Airport Holdings Ltd. (AAHL) gained the tag of the country’s largest airport operator after acquiring Mumbai International Airport Ltd. (MAIL).
As per a report by Icra Ltd., due to the decreased passenger traffic led by coronavirus across the world, the airport sector might witness a net loss of ₹5,400 crore in the financial year ended 31 March 2021. In addition, it came up with an estimation of a ₹3,500 crore cash loss.
However, the rating agency is expecting the sector to recover in this financial year with industry net profit jumping to ₹190 crore.
