For GMR, Hyderabad traffic growth may be sparse

GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL), a subsidiary of GMR Infrastructure, expects to maintain the current growth tempo in cargo traffic but is uncertain about the passenger traffic growth going forward.

The company that operates the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Hyderabad, would achieve breakeven for the last fiscal and record “some” profits for the current fiscal, Vikram Jaisinghani, GHIAL’s CEO, said.

GHIAL is likely to announce a 17% rise in passenger traffic for the year ended March 2011 and a 20% growth in cargo traffic.

The airport operator saw passenger footfall of about 7.6 million during fiscal 2011 including 1.9 million international passengers.

“We are certain about maintaining the growth at about 20% in cargo. But to sustain 17% growth in passenger traffic this year too would be aggressive. It is aggressive since it would be difficult to talk about 17% growth back to back for two years,” Jaisinghani said.

While the passenger traffic is a factor that is linked to the travel habits and plans made by passengers, the company is consciously making efforts to market the airport as a cargo hub.

“We have clocked about 80,000 tonne of cargo movement during the year. Of this, about 50% is domestic the rest is Exim. Of the Exim cargo, about 30% is imports and the rest is exports. Out of the export cargo, about 70% is through the pharma sector. So, we are planning to promote the airport as a hub for pharma exports,” he said.

The company is currently witnessing consignments from almost all the pharma companies in the region, particularly with Lufthansa Cargo declaring the airport as its cargo hub.

GHIAL and Lufthansa have developed an exclusive pharma zone with controlled temperature facilities. The pharma zone has two zones with different temperatures — one for storing drugs and medicines at about 25 degrees centigrade and another for storing vaccines and sensitive products at 2-8 degrees centigrade.

Lufthansa Cargo has certified GHIAL to be one of its cargo hubs in South Asia for the transport of temperature sensitive pharmaceuticals. The zone also has officials from drug controller’s office and customs department. Lufthansa Cargo will provide the capacity for the transport of temperature sensitive cargo. The facility, which became operational in January 2011, has a capacity to provide temperature controlled handling for over 30,000 tonne of pharmaceutical products per annum.

“The effort is now on developing the hub-and-spoke model initiated by Lufthansa. We are confident that pharma exports will gradually increase from Hyderabad with the drug manufacturers in other parts of the country using feeder routes to bring their products to Hyderabad for exports,” Jaisinghani said.