Adani Group To Invest $15 Billion In Airport Expansion Across India By 2030

Adani Group To Invest $15 Billion In Airport Expansion Across India By 2030

The Adani Group is planning to invest about $15 billion over the next five years to expand passenger handling capacity across its airport portfolio to 200 million a year, Bloomberg reported, quoting sources. The move is aimed at capitalising on India's fast-growing aviation market and comes ahead of the group's proposed listing of its airports business.

As per the report, the expansion blueprint includes adding new terminals, taxiways and a runway at the upcoming Navi Mumbai airport, which is scheduled to open on December 25. Capacity upgrades are also planned at the group's airports in Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Thiruvananthapuram, Lucknow and Guwahati. The people cited said around 70% of the funding will be raised through debt over five years, while the remaining will come from equity.

The expansion strategy aligns with expectations that India's annual air passenger traffic will more than double to 300 million by 2030. By scaling up capacity to about two-thirds of that level, Adani aims to position itself as a key driver of the sector's growth and strengthen the case for its planned airport unit IPO.

Bloomberg noted that the expansion — which will lift total passenger capacity by more than 60% — excludes the additional 20 million passengers from Navi Mumbai and 11 million from the Guwahati airport, both of which are set to open this month.

The upgrades will focus on six airports leased to Adani during India's second phase of airport privatisation in 2020, earlier operated by the state-run Airports Authority of India. India had started privatising airports in 2006, when GMR Airports and GVK Power & Infrastructure acquired New Delhi and Mumbai airports, respectively, with Adani later acquiring GVK's stake.

The government is now looking to privatise 11 more airports by bundling loss-making ones with profitable assets. Adani Airport Holdings, the country's largest airport operator by number of airports, and GMR Airports, the largest by passenger traffic, are expected to be among the key bidders.

India is also developing a second airport in Delhi to meet surging demand and has set an ambitious target of expanding the total number of airports nationwide to 400 by 2047, from about 160 at present.

Source: News18
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