Adani Enterprises plans to aggressively bid for 11 airports that the federal government plans to lease to the private sector, as part of the company's $11 billion expansion strategy for airport infrastructure over the next five years.
The Adani Group, through its airport arm Adani Airport Holdings Ltd (AAHL), is India's largest airport infrastructure operator. It controls a significant share of India's air traffic, accounting for roughly 23 per cent of passenger movements and about 33 per cent of cargo traffic nationwide.
The Indian government is leasing out government-owned airports for long periods to private players while incentivising building new ones. It plans to have 350 to 400 airports by 2047 from 163 currently. Earlier this year, New Delhi outlined plans to lease out 11 airports, including at Amritsar and Varanasi.
"We will be bidding for all (11) of them," Jeet Adani, director at Adani Airports Holdings Limited (AAHL), said in an interview in Mumbai this week.
Adani Airports manages seven airports across India and is set to operationalise the first airport it has built from scratch - a new airport near Mumbai - this month.
Navi Mumbai International Airport will become the latest addition to the Adani Group's expanding airport portfolio, further strengthening its presence in India's aviation infrastructure.
The airport, being developed by Navi Mumbai International Airport Ltd (NMIAL) in which the Adani Group holds a 74 per cent stake, is scheduled to commence commercial operations on December 25.
Built at an initial cost of Rs 19,650 crore, the first phase will have a capacity to handle 20 million passengers annually, with plans to scale up to 90 million passengers over time, easing capacity constraints at Mumbai’s existing airport and supporting long-term growth in the region's air traffic.
Adani group had acquired the Mumbai airport from GVK Group.
Beside the two airports at Mumbai, Adani Group operates six other airports at Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, Jaipur and Mangaluru.
This portfolio includes a mix of metro and regional airports, with the group also planning to bid aggressively for the next round of airport privatisations.
"As a staunch believer, bullish believer in this industry, we would be 100 per cent very aggressive in the next round of bidding for all 11 (airports)," he said.
In the previous round of privatisation in 2019, Adani Group won six airports - Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, Jaipur and Mangaluru - and acquired Mumbai Airport from the GVK Group in 2021.
The Civil Aviation Ministry has identified 11 airports, including six smaller ones, for operations under the public-private partnership model, while the National Monetisation Pipeline envisages leasing 25 Airports Authority of India-operated airports between 2022 and 2025.
IPO PLANS
Jeet Adani said there is no fixed timeline for a public listing of AAHL but an initial public offering or a de-merger would depend on achieving some milestones including the business becoming cash positive.
Currently, AAHL is "largely" EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) positive, but due to the capital expenditure cycle, more cash needs to be deployed, he said.
When asked about a possible valuation for the business, Jeet Adani said that has not been set but the company will look at "comparable multiples" when deciding that
Adani and GMR are rushing to tap into booming air travel in India. About 174 million passengers travelled from and within the south Asian country by air in 2024, 10 per cent more than a year ago, data from the International Air Transport Association showed. Indian airlines have placed orders for over 1,300 aircraft since 2023.
Jeet Adani said the company has no plans to enter the airline business, citing thin margins.
"You need to have a certain mindset to run an airline. I don't think we have that mindset. Our comfort and our core competency is in creating hard assets on the ground, long gestation assets, running them quite efficiently," he said.