The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) has plans for charging outbounds passengers up to Rs 300 more on their flight journeys. As per a report from the Times of India, The Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) has sought the permission from the regulator for charging Rs 200 from the domestic and Rs 300 from the international flight passengers going out of Delhi in addition to their flight fares. Further, the airport group has asked the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) for allowing this until March 2024 — more details on the story ahead.
Indira Gandhi International Airport Might Charge More from Outbound Passengers Until March 2024
It is worth noting that it is not just the IGIA airport, but also the Mumbai airport as well, which seeks to do this. The Mumbai airport has also submitted its request with the regulator for charging Rs 200 from the domestic and Rs 500 from the international passengers flying out of Mumbai.
Both the Delhi and Mumbai airport seek to levy this cost on the pockets of the passengers so that they can mitigate the losses happening because of the COVID-19 pandemic. While at the same time, the PPP airports of Kochi and Hyderabad have not said anything about charging the outbound passengers more like the Delhi and Mumbai airport.
DIAL which runs the Indira Gandhi International Airport said that the group would face a loss of Rs 3,583 crore until March 2024 because of the less number of footfalls at the airport. The airport group has already informed the government about the loss it has incurred in the April to September half of the financial year 2020-21 which is Rs 419 crore and expects the total loss to be Rs 919 crore in the whole year.
The first casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country was the travel industry. The aviation sector was brought to a halt when the government imposed a nationwide lockdown in March. It was only two months later on May 25, 2020, that the airlines were allowed to operate domestic flights again.
