Adani Airports has a Rs 60,000-crore capex plan for the next 10 years, says Karan Adani, Around Rs 30,000 crore will be spent on the ‘airside’ in the next five years, while another Rs 30,000 crore will be allocated to the ‘cityside’ in the next five to 10 years at its seven existing airports.

The Adani Group has lined up Rs 60,000 crore to expand the seven existing airports in its portfolio over the next 5-10 years, Karan Adani, MD of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, said.

Adani Airports Holdings (AAHL) Chief Executive Officer Arun Bansal said Rs 30,000 crore will be spent on the ‘airside’ in the next five years, while the rest will be allocated to the ‘cityside’ in the next five to 10 years at its seven existing airports in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Guwahati, Jaipur, and Thiruvananthapuram.

The capital expenditure (capex) of Rs 60,000 crore does not include the Rs 18,000 crore allocated for the Phase-I development of the Navi Mumbai airport, scheduled to commence operations by March 2025, clarified Bansal.

Both Bansal and Karan Adani were speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the new terminal inauguration at Lucknow Airport on March 10, built for Rs 2,400 crore. This will be able to handle 80 million passengers a year.

"The current capacity of our airports is 10-11 crore passengers annually (CPA). This will be increased by up to three times. Lucknow has got a new terminal. Navi Mumbai will open next (by next March). Then Guwahati airport will get a new terminal. We are planning new terminals for Ahmedabad and Jaipur also. Overall, we are looking at a combined capacity of 25-30 CPA by 2040," Karan Adani said.

He added that these investments will be funded through internal accruals of parent company Adani Enterprises Ltd, and the group has not made any firm plans on listing the airport subsidiary of the company, Adani Airport Holdings Limited, yet.

He declined to comment on reports of a $2.6-billion fund-raise by the group for its airport and green hydrogen business.

Bansal said the priority is to operationalize Navi Mumbai airport and start city-side development at airports and added the group will look at an IPO of the business at a later date. “Internationally, our strategy is to participate in (airport development) opportunities where it makes sense for the group...where there is larger opportunity in the country to participate in ports, transmission, etc. We are looking at one specific country at the moment.”

He added that the group's planning is based on "how we see it in 2033-35 rather than next year because that's how the capex cycle depends".

As part of the strategy to meet its rising demand, the Adani group plans to more than double its airport capacity by 2040.

"This capacity forecast may look big for now but our philosophy is to make the infrastructure for the future so we don't catch up," Bansal added.

The capacity will be grown in a phased manner. Lucknow Airport’s new terminal, for instance, has a capacity of 8 million passengers per annum currently, which will be increased to 13 million in the next phase and then to 38 million annually by 2035.

The group’s focus is also on developing the city side of airports, which will give a boost to its ancillary revenues. It will be developed over 160 acres in Mumbai, 100 acres in Lucknow, 200 acres in Navi Mumbai, 17 acres in Jaipur, and 2 acres in Thiruvananthapuram.

The land on the city side of these airports will be developed to house businesses that are related to the aviation sector, such as hotels, offices of aviation companies, etc.

Explaining the strategy for the airport’s business, Adani added that the group sees airports in smaller cities becoming hubs for international passengers.

“We foresee non-metros bypassing hubs and providing flyers direct connectivity across the world. Their connectivity within the country will also improve," he said.

Big metros serve as hubs for direct international connectivity out of India to distant continents. Tier-II cities are connected to nearby metro hubs, from where passengers take connecting flights to the rest of the world.

The Adani Group won the rights to operate six airports - Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangalore - in 2019. In 2021, it acquired Mumbai and the upcoming Navi Mumbai Airport from the GVK Group. With eight airports, the group is preparing to build capacity for 250 to 300 million passengers by 2040, said Adani Airport Holdings CEO Arun Bansal. That's up from about 73 million at the seven that are currently operational.

On March 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated airport projects worth Rs 9,800 crore from Azamgarh in UP.

These include new terminal buildings of Pune, Kolhapur, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Delhi, Lucknow, Aligarh, Azamgarh, Chitrakoot, Moradabad, Shravasti and Adampur airports. He laid the foundation stones for new terminal buildings for Kadapa, Hubballi and Belagavi Airports.