Adani Enterprises signs 50-year agreements with AAI for 3 airports

Having won bids, AEL had also set up a subsidiary Adani Airports Ltd which would operate, manage and develop the airports

Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL) on Friday signed a 50 years concession agreements with Airports Authority of India (AAI) for developing and operating three airports including Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru, the company said in its filing with stock exchanges.

The agreements has been signed between AAI and AEL's wholly owned subsidiaries Adani Ahmedabad International Airport Ltd, Adani Lucknow International Airport Ltd and Adani Mangaluru International Airport Ltd.

Earlier in February 2019, AEL had made the highest bids for airports at Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati of which the Union Cabinet had approved the AAI run Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru airports to be leased out on a public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

Having won bids, AEL had also set up a subsidiary Adani Airports Ltd which would operate, manage and develop the airports. The company had earlier stated that it would be investing roughly Rs 10000 crore in airport projects.

Under the current agreements, AEL would stand to hold a management control for 50-year lease period as well as on a per-passenger fee model. While AEL would pay Rs 3600 crore to AAI as part of the lease, it would spend Rs 6000 crore on the airports for the next seven years post takeover.

Meanwhile, approval for Guwahati and Jaipur airports are awaited from the state governments while Kerala government has challenged the Thiruvananthapuram airport bid of AEL in court.