The revenue clocked by four airports in Kerala in the last three financial years paints rosy as well as bleak pictures. At present, Kerala has one Airport Authority of India (AAI)-run airport, Calicut International Airport, and three airports under public-private partnerships (PPP), including the recently privatised Thiruvananthapuram International Airport, Cochin International Airport, and Kannur International Airport.
Among the four airports, Cochin and Calicut airports returned to growth track soon after the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, while Kannur airport has been making losses ever since it was opened in December 2018, largely due to high capital investment and low passenger traffic coupled with the Centre’s refusal to provide ‘point of call’ status to the airport, a classification that is mandatory for foreign airlines to hold operations at the airport.
On the other hand, Thiruvananthapuram airport, which made a record profit of ₹189 crore during the pre-pandemic period, continues to register losses despite the airport being taken over by the private concessionaire Adani Group in 2021. The airport, which garnered a revenue of ₹350 crore since its takeover on October 14, 2021, incurred a cumulative loss of ₹162.47 crore so far after the privatisation — ₹110.15 crore in 2022-23 fiscal alone.
Interestingly, the Calicut airport, which handles a less number of passengers compared to the Thiruvananthapuram and Cochin airports, netted a profit of ₹95.38 crore in 2022–23. Further, among the 125 AAI-run airports in the country, Calicut airport stands third in position after Kolkata (₹482.30 crore) and Chennai (₹169.56 crore) airports in terms of highest profit netted in the last fiscal. So is the case with Cochin International Airport, which is the second largest profit-making airport in the country with ₹267.17 crore in 2022-23 after Bangalore (₹528.31 crore), out of the total 14 PPP airports in the country.
Similarly, all six privatised airports in the country — Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati — registered losses in the last fiscal. The Centre earmarked Calicut airport along with 24 other AAI-run airports for privatisation before 2025. Speaking to The Hindu, sources in the Thiruvananthapuram airport said, “The revenue being generated from the airport is not proportional to the investment being made by the private concessionaire in the airport. This is one of the main reasons for the negative growth of the airport. However, we hope to break even or reduce the loss to at least ₹10 crore this fiscal buoyed by the rise in air traffic through the airport,” said the source. When the airport was in the custody of AAI, the approximate operational cost was around ₹142.09 crore.
