10% hike in air traffic, but none in airport revenue because of low landing and parking charges.
Despite an increase in the movement of flights per day at the Ahmedabad airport, officials are getting peanuts for revenue. Reasons have been attributed to the extremely low aircraft landing and parking charges.
Air traffic in April had increased by around 10 per cent because of the frequent arrival of politicians for election campaigns. This movement should have fetched more revenue to the airport authority from the parking and landing charges, but the dampened spirits of the officials signal to the contrary. Despite continuous roars of choppers and aircrafts, the airport authorities are not drawing sufficient revenue. This is mainly because the choppers and aircrafts having an upper limit of 80 seats are exempted from landing charges. To top it up, the parking charges are also very low; they are in fact lower than what the visitors are charged for parking their vehicles.
According to the airport authorities, smaller aircraft and choppers are not charged for parking at all for the first two hours. And even when they are charged for parking beyond two hours, the levy is less than Rs6 per hour. Visitors on the other hand are charged Rs60 for the first four hours for parking a four wheeler at the airport premises and then Rs15 per hour. For two wheelers, it is Rs15 for the first four hours.
Airport authorities have expressed disappointment over the fact that despite an increase of 10 per cent in air traffic during election campaigning, the benefit was zero. As a matter of fact, security officers had to face extra work pressure every time a Z-plus security-equipped political leader arrived at the airport. "Flight movements showed quite an improvement last month, but it did not help us in any way as far as revenue is concerned. Post elections, we are expecting the air traffic to go up by another 5 per cent, but unfortunately it will not make a major difference since landing for aircrafts having up to 80 seats is anyways free while parking is also free for the first two hours," said a senior official.
"Most leaders use private aircrafts and some two years back, the airport authority had exempted landing and parking charges for private aircrafts. The decision was taken after private operators said that heavy charges would harm their business," added the official.
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