Adani group takes over management of Mumbai airport

Adani group on Tuesday said it has taken over the management of Mumbai International airport from the GVK group.

The group last August had announced that it would acquire GVK Group's stake in Mumbai airport.

Adani group will have 74 per cent stake in Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, post the stake purchase transaction, with 50.5 per cent being bought from GVK group and 23.5 per cent from minority partners including Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), and Bidvest Group, it had said.

"We are delighted to take over management of the world class Mumbai International Airport.

"We promise to make Mumbai proud. The Adani Group will build an airport ecosystem of the future for business, leisure and entertainment.

"We will create thousands of new local jobs,” Adani group chairman Gautam Adani said in a tweet.

Later in a statement, Adani Airport Holdings Ltd (AAHL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Ltd, said it has taken over the management control of Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) from the GVK Group following the MIAL Board Meeting earlier in the day.

This follows approvals received from the Central Government, the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) of Maharashtra, and the Government of Maharashtra, it added.

“Our larger objective is to reinvent airports as ecosystems that drive local economic development and act as the nuclei around which we can catalyse aviation-linked businesses.

"These include metropolitan developments that span entertainment facilities, e-commerce and logistics capabilities, aviation dependent industries, smart city developments, and other innovative business concepts,” Adani said in the statement.

"Our airport expansion strategy is intended to help converge our nation's Tier 1 cities with the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in a hub and spoke model.

"This is fundamental to enabling a greater equalization of India's urban–rural divide, as well as making international travel seamless and smooth,” he said.

"I believe that the economic value that cities create will be maximized around airports and the cities of tomorrow will be built with the airport as the focal point.

"This is a fundamental lever for modern world development and the rapid build-out of our airport infrastructure will create multiple employment structures that generate thousands of new job opportunities,” he added.

Mumbai International Airport is the country's second busiest airport (after Delhi's IGIA) by both passenger and cargo traffic.

With eight airports (in its management and development portfolio), Adani Airport Holdings is now India's largest airport infrastructure company, accounting for 25 per cent airport footfalls, the company said in the statement.

With the addition of MIAL, AAHL will now also control 33 per cent of India's air cargo traffic, it added.

According to the company while the world navigates its way out of an unprecedented crisis, post-pandemic demand for air travel in India and the rest of the world is expected to surge.

The  International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects global passenger traffic to recover to 88 per cent of pre-COVID levels by 2022 and exceed pre-COVID levels in 2023, it said.

With India becoming to be the world's third largest aviation market by 2024, the addition of the Mumbai International Airport to the Adani Group's existing portfolio of six airports, and thereafter the operationalization of the greenfield Navi Mumbai International Airport Limited (NMIAL) provides a transformational aviation platform allowing the Adani Group to interlink its B2B and B2C business as well as create several strategic adjacencies for the Group's other B2B businesses, it stated.

AAHL also said it will begin the construction of the Navi Mumbai International Airport next month and complete the financial closure in the next 90 days.

This new international airport will be commissioned in 2024.

Photograph: Rajesh Karkera/Rediff.com