HYDERABAD: Flying is all set to get more expensive from Friday (April 1) as several airports - both PPP and AAI ones - will be hiking their aeronautical fees from Friday (April 1).
Both the user development fees (UDF) and aero charges levied on airlines - which are in turn passed on as higher fares to recover this cost - will be hiked. The airports to see the hike include Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai and Kochi. Pune will see a mini fall in charges.
This comes on top of the steep rise in jet fuel cost that had anyway led to airlines hiking fares. "Hike in airport charges will have a limited impact but they will add to the anyway more expensive airline fares," said a senior airline official. A one-way Delhi-Doha ticket used to cost Rs 14,000 during pandemic and now the spot fares have climbed to Rs 24,000. ATF prices will be revised on Friday. Jet fuel currently is at 14-year-high globally.
Kolkata, for instance, will see its existing UDF for departing domestic and international passengers rise from Rs 583 and Rs 1,401.7 rise to Rs 598 and Rs 1437, respectively. Then in phases this will rise to Rs 644 and Rs 1,547, respectively starting April 1, 2025. They will fall from January 1, 2026, to Rs 547 and Rs 1,315, respectively.
Citing low traffic during the pandemic, many airport operators had during Covid sought hike in gradual hikes in charges to remain sustainable and also fund their expansion plans. Airlines, on the other hand, have told the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) that any hike in charges that makes flying more expensive will hamper air traffic recovery.
The B S Bhullar-headed AERA has done a balancing act by not allowing any hike at many airports in FY 2021-22 (March 31, 2022) as "any increase in tariffs or additional charges at this stage is likely to be detrimental for the recovery of traffic and the recovery of the sector as a whole," says one of the tariff orders. AERA had rejected requests of both Delhi and Mumbai airports to levy an ad hoc UDF levy to tide over the Covid crisis.
Pune airport, which is a defence airfield with a passenger terminal of Airports Authority of India, will see its UDF fall marginally from Rs 400 and Rs 793 for each departing domestic and international passenger to Rs 387 and Rs 745.
