Adani Airports Holdings Ltd, part of the Adani group, is required to pay approximately ₹2,800 crore to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for the acquisition of three airports obtained during a privatization initiative in 2021, according to sources familiar with the situation.
This payment is connected to revenue shortfalls experienced at the Jaipur, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati airports while they were under AAI management during the pandemic. Operators encounter revenue shortfalls when their actual earnings do not meet the guaranteed returns set over a five-year timeframe. To address this, they can adjust tariffs in the following five-year cycle to ensure the promised returns are met. Additionally, the Adani Group's financial commitments to AAI include reimbursing investments made by the authority from 2019 to 2021, which were related to airport development prior to the handover of operations to Adani.
In November 2021, the Adani group previously paid ₹2,440 crore to AAI for the acquisition of six airports, including Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, Lucknow, and Mangalore. Attempts to reach representatives from both the Adani group and AAI for comments went unanswered.
In India, airport operators' earnings are regulated with set tariff rates that yield a fixed return over a five-year control period, as sanctioned by the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA). Airports are permitted to charge a range of fees, such as landing and parking charges, as well as user development fees.
