Hyderabad, November 02: The increase in the airport user development fee (UDF) will come into effect on November 8, GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL), which operates the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) at Shamshabad near here, has said.
Every domestic air passenger travelling from the Shamshabad airport will have to shell out Rs 430 (inclusive of taxes) instead of Rs 380 levied as UDF. The outbound international passengers have to cough up Rs 1,875, which is inclusive of taxes, as opposed to Rs 1,000 being charged currently.
Last week the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) had approved the increase in the UDF on departing domestic and international passengers from November 1.
However, it will come into effect only next week as GHIAL has to make some procedural arrangements. The increase comes two years after GHIAL had sought it in September 2008.
The current UDF is also the highest across the country. UDF is a fee levied on passengers by the airport operator to provide and maintain quality infrastructure.
It is also one of the crucial revenue generating sources for the operators.
GHIAL, a subsidiary of GMR Infra, had earlier said it was incurring depreciation losses due to lower UDF.
The company posted losses to the tune of Rs 120 crore and Rs 109 crore during the financial years 2008-09 and 2009-10 respectively.
According to senior company officials, with the increase in the UDF, GHIAL will be able to generate about Rs 30 crore over the next four or five months and about Rs 70 crore during the next financial year 2011-12.
“We hope that with the increase in air traffic and assuming that the ad hoc increase in UDF will continue, we will be able to minimise the losses substantially over the next two or three years,” a senior company official told Express.
The RGIA handled 6.9 million passengers in 2009-10, of which, 26 per cent comprised international traffic.
Air traffic across the country is expected to grow 13 per cent over the next three years.
–Agencies