Private airport cos get strong tarmac footing

mumbai: an inter-ministerial group meeting on tuesday set the pace for the long-term lease of the four key international airports at mumbai, delhi, kolkota and chennai to private companies. the group cleared key strategic issues and approved the meetings with prospective bidders to be held in delhi on april 15 and at london on april 19. among the issues decided today was that ``operators would be allowed to decide the aeronautical tariff, which is the fee charged from airlines for landing and parking, on the formula linked to the wpi'''', said a finance ministry source. the formula (wpi minus x, where x is an efficiency factor to be measured by consumer surveys), is used globally at many airports. aai does not use this to determine the tariffs at its airports. the img also decided that the operators would be allowed to levy a capex charge on the airport users (passengers as well as airlines) for all capital expenditure incurred to improve the airport standards. some of the airport terminals, such as the mumbai domestic airport will need substantial investment and upgradation. passengers today pay airport tariff in two ways — for domestic airports the fee, called iatt (inland air travel tax), is at 15 per cent of the ticket cost plus a passenger service fee of rs 200. for international travel it’s the foreign travel tax (ftt), which is a fixed sum of rs 350 for neighbouring countries and rs 500 for other international destinations.