Govt to bundle loss-making, profitable airports for sale

Companies looking to participate in the next airport privatisation round will have to bid for loss-making facilities along with profit-making ones. The government has decided to bundle seven that make losses with six profit-making airports, said people with knowledge of the matter.

“Required approvals are in place and the bidding for these projects is likely to begin during the next fiscal,” said a government official. “A loss-making airport would not otherwise have found takers but when it is combined with a profit-making airport in its vicinity there are chances of these airports being bid out too.”

According to the approved list, the profit-making airports are Trichy, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Amritsar. These will be paired with Salem, Jharusuguda, Jabalpur, Jalgaon and Kangda, respectively. So a bid for Trichy includes Salem, and so on.