AAI Chairman R. K. Srivastava (left) with G.
K. Chaukiyal, Member (Operations), AAI.
The major international
airports of India—Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Kochi—are
no longer in the hands of the government-controlled Airports Authority
of India (AAI) since they were handed over to private operators, and AAI
is now developing strategies to build a stronger revenue stream from air
cargo.
After his first meeting with air cargo stakeholders,
the recently appointed AAI Chairman R. K. Srivastava noted that the spotlight
was on cargo.
“AAI,” he said, “is venturing
into the new area of domestic cargo operations with an objective to create
the basic infrastructure at its airports, which have potential for air
cargo growth.”
One of the drivers here is that AAI has
been pushed to find new sources for revenue generation to maintain its
position as a Mini Ratna Category-1 entity (the status is awarded to government-controlled
enterprises that made profits continuously for the last three years or
earned a net profit of Rs. 30 crore or $4.82 million or more in one of
the three years). The organization is also trying to move ahead of the
Mini Ratna category to attain Navratna status (that is when the enterprise
scores 60 out of 100, based on six parameters which include net profit,
net worth, total manpower cost, total cost of production, cost of services,
PBDIT (Profit Before Depreciation, Interest and Taxes), capital employed,
etc.).
Srivastava told FlyingTypers that
air cargo was integral to the growth of the nation and that the AAI had
been pioneering the development of international cargo operations in the
country.
This resulted in active international cargo
operations at various metro and non-metro airports. He said that he had
met air cargo stakeholders to understand the problems they were facing.
“There are many issues relating to different sectors. We have identified
them and discussed them in our efforts to resolve these issues. Our role
is to provide infrastructure and facilitate business," the Chairman
emphasized.
Now that India was poised to take a big
leap in manufacturing, development of infrastructure, and e-commerce,
for which logistics played a vital role, the AAI had “risen to the
occasion . . . AAI is now ready to take a lead in developing
domestic air cargo in the country,” he said.
In fact, “domestic cargo grew by 10
percent and international by five percent last year.”
As a part of this plan, AAI was in the “process
of developing 24 domestic airports for Common User Domestic Cargo Terminal,
which will facilitate to exploit the full potential of domestic cargo.
This process will be further accelerated through a focused approach for
developing more domestic cargo operations in the coming days,” he
said. The Chairman also mentioned that already three airports—Jaipur,
Lucknow, and Coimbatore—had started cargo operations and the other
21 would start in a couple of years.
Tirthankar Ghosh |
