GMR airport moots infrastructure sharing

With airlines looking at optimising costs and reworking their capacities, the Hyderabad-based GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL), too, is working on making it easy for the airlines to fly to its greenfield airport.

The airport company, which operates the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, is planning to help airlines create a hub for their operations in Hyderabad by sharing infrastructure and other such facilities.

D Ravindran, vice-president, strategy initiatives and planning, GHIAL, told DNA Money, “Our focus in on creating a hub for the airlines, which is makes their operations easy and cost-effective. But, this is not a hub that is exclusive to one particular airline.”
Under the plan, the Hyderabad airport will provide common facilities to a group of airlines for sharing of infrastructure and other landside facilities that would result in greater savings for the airlines in terms of their operational costs.

“We are talking to two airlines from the Middle East, two from SAARC and at least two from India for this model. Under this, all these airlines will share facilities at the airport. This would avoid a lot of costs for the airlines to have their own facilities, which might remain underutilised,” he said.

According to him, it would take a year for the plan to materialise. “We hope to do it in a year. First of all we should talk to all these airlines and bring them together,” he said.
Airlines are now looking at creating hubs for tapping the potential in the Tier II destinations. For an airline to fly from a place like Delhi to Tirupati or Rajahmundry would not prove to be economical considering the uncertain load factors on some of these Tier II routes. However, a hub at, for instance, Hyderabad would make it convenient for them assess the load correctly and plan the routes.