BT Explainer: Plans on to cap airport bidding by one player. What happens to Adani’s airport expansion plans?

Adani Airport Holdings plans to increase its control over Indian airports from the current eight, including the Navi Mumbai Airport, which is likely to be hit with a proposal under the government’s consideration for capping bids from a single player for 11 airports likely to come online for privatisation.  Adani is the largest private airport operator, while GMR, with three airports — Delhi, Hyderabad and Goa — handled the highest passenger footfall of 120.57 million passengers in FY25 compared to 94.44 million by Adani during the same period.   

Discussions are on framing bidding rules to encourage competition and prevent crucial infrastructure from being controlled by a single enterprise, said a report in Economic Times.

This move aims to address concerns over market concentration and the risk of monopoly in the civil aviation sector following last year’s crisis at IndiGo, which affected the entire industry.

How will it impact Adani?

The move is likely to hit the airport expansion plans of Adani. Jeet Adani, director at Adani Group, has indicated that the group will aggressively pursue all 11 airports in the new round. Now, the policy under consideration would allow a single enterprise to be awarded a maximum of two blocks, equivalent to four airports.

If the same entity tops the bid for a third block, the second-highest bidder would have the option to match the price. Officials from the civil aviation and finance ministries and Niti Aayog are working on the framework, the report added.

The final decision will rest with the Public-Private Partnership Appraisal Committee, which approves large-scale infrastructure privatisation.

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How many airports Adani operate?

Adani controls eight airports -- Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Guwahati, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Mangaluru and Thiruvananthapuram. The biggest the recently launched Navi Mumbai Airport, which has state-of-the-art facilities.

It also runs the existing Mumbai airport, this having control over both airports in the country’s financial hub. Adani group won bids for six airports in 2018, being the highest bidder for these airports and sometimes quoting double the tender amount of the second-highest bidder.\

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Which are the new airports offered for privatisation?

Amritsar, Varanasi, Gaya, Bhubaneswar, Hubli, Raipur, Kushinagar, Kangra, Aurangabad, Tirupati and Trichy. For the first time in this privatisation exercise, smaller airports will be bundled with larger ones in similar regions to attract private investment for less commercially attractive facilities.

Under this plan, Varanasi will be paired with Kushinagar and Gaya, while Amritsar, Bhubaneswar, Raipur and Trichy will be grouped with Kangra, Tirupati, Aurangabad and Hubli, respectively.