The Hindu : Front Page : Non-traffic revenue of Bajpe airport continues to be low

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 20, 2005

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Non-traffic revenue of Bajpe airport continues to be low

Raviprasad Kamila

Airport authority plans second phase of upgradation to improve infrastructure

MANGALORE: With work on the new runway at the Bajpe airport to be completed by March 2006, it has become inevitable for the Airport Authority of India (AAI) to take steps to improve infrastructure for commercial activities.

This is because non-traffic revenue of the Bajpe airport is low. As per the international standards, the non-traffic revenue should be 60 per cent of its earnings.

But non-traffic revenue of the Bajpe airport was 16 per cent and traffic revenue at 84 per cent in 2004-05, sources quoting a Union Ministry of Civil Aviation data published by the AAI told The Hindu. The share of non-traffic revenue of the airport has been between 13 per cent and 18 per cent for the last few years.

The terminal building rent and revenues earned by hoardings and display advertisements, snack bar, car parking, travel requisite stall, restaurant and the like constitute non-traffic revenue. And the traffic revenue constitutes revenue collected from aircraft for parking and night parking, landing, route navigation facility charge, etc. If the airports earn their main income by non-traffic revenue, it reduces their risk of depending only on traffic revenue.

In the last financial year, the airport's main source of non-traffic revenue constituted the terminal building rent.

The AAI has drawn up plans to take up the second phase of work to upgrade the airport after the completion of the new runway to make it a full-fledged airport. It has urged the Government to sanction 158.33 acres of land for this. Of this, 130.55 acres of land is private property. The AAI will construct a new terminal building south-west of the new runway. Once the land is handed over to the AAI, the new terminal building has to be made viable for commercial developments. Now the onus is on the Government to speed up measures to hand over the additional land required by the AAI. The Government has sanctioned Rs. 3 crores for acquiring 130.55 acres of private property surrounding the new runway.

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