User fee likely at city airport

Arjun RaghunathFirst Published : 16 Mar 2010 02:37:00 AM ISTLast Updated :

Flying from Thiruvananthapuram Airport may soon become dearer as the Airports Authority of India (AAI) is planning to impose User Development Fee (UDF) at the airport once the new terminal becomes operational.


Highly-placed sources in the Civil Aviation Ministry told this paper that the AAI proposed a user fee of around Rs 900 per outbound international passenger and around Rs 300 per outbound domestic passenger from the Thiruvananthapuram airport. But, there would be no user fee for inbound passengers.

“The proposal is under the active consideration of Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA), the newly-formed regulatory authority on airline-related fares. A final decision on imposing UDF would be announced once the new terminal is inaugurated, which is expected to happen within a couple of months’ time,’’ said sources.

Local sources, however, said that any decision to introduce user fee at the city airport would spark off a massive agitation in the State capital. Though user fee was earlier imposed at the Nedumbassery and Karipur airports, it was later withdrawn owing to stiff resistance from various quarters.

UDF has been imposed at all the newly-developed airports, including the Bangalore and Hyderabad airports. The AAI has now proposed to levy UDF at nine of its airports, including the one at Thiruvananthapuram.

AERA has already granted its nod to levy UDF at Jaipur airport. Udaipur, Amritsar, Mangalore, Varanasi, Visakhapatnam, Ahmedabad and Trichy are the other airports where AAI proposes to impose UDF.

While inaugurating a new terminal of the Delhi airport recently, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel had also hinted that user fee would be levied at the AAI-run airports, including the Thiruvananthapuram airport.

The intention of levying UDF from passengers is to recover the investment by AAI on these airports as well as to tide over the decline in revenue caused by the economic slowdown. AAI has so far invested around Rs 150 crore on the new terminal at Thiruvananthapuram airport. AAI expects to earn an additional earning of about Rs 100 crore by charging UDF at the nine airports.