Date:23/10/2007 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/10/23/stories/2007102350690700.htm

Back Coimbatore, Port Blair, Vizag airports post profit

Ashwini Phadnis

New Delhi, Oct 22 The expansion of operations by domestic airlines including low-cost airlines has seen Coimbatore, Port Blair and Visakhapatnam airports join the growing number of airports in south India that reported a profit during 2006-07.

Official sources told Business Line that with these three airports the number of southern airports reporting a profit has risen to eight and the overall tally of profitable airports around the country has reached 17.

Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram were the other airports in south India which continued to record profits. The highest increase in passenger traffic was recorded at Port Blair, which handled almost three lakh more passengers during 2006-07 as compared to the previous year.

Expansion

Sources indicated that the decision of Airports Authority of India to expand the runway allowed airlines to operate the larger Airbus A-320 or Boeing 737 variety of aircraft that can carry more than 145 passengers rather than operating the smaller turbo-prop aircraft that can seat around 50 passengers.

While earlier only Indian used to operate flights to Port Blair, a number of airlines including Jet Airways, Air Deccan, JetLite and the state-owned helicopter operator, Pawan Hans operated flights from Kolkata and Chennai, officials said.

A number of airlines including the state owned low-cost airline, Air India Express, are looking to operate flights to Port Blair.

Sources indicated that AI Express is examining the option of launching flights on the Delhi-Port Blair-Phuket sector.

Coimbatore

At Coimbatore airport domestic passenger traffic jumped to more than 8.5 lakh up from 5.7 lakh during 2005-06 while international passenger traffic remained almost static at around 14,700, sources indicated.

Similarly there was an increase in the domestic passenger traffic handled by Visakhapatnam airport which peaked at 3.2 lakh from 2.4 lakh during 2005-06. Srinagar was the only other new entrant into the list of airports reporting a profit during 2006-07. The financials of these airports were, however, not readily available as the results were still to be audited, sources said.

“The 17 airports would generate a cash profit for AAI. The exact profit figure should be available soon,” sources said.