Airports to levy fee for development

NEW DELHI, MARCH 3
Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has decided to levy development fee from passengers at AAI-operated airports like Goa, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Thiruvananthapuram. Privately operated airports at Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore are already charging such fees from passengers. However, the minister did not disclose the amount of the fee.
The privately-managed Mumbai Airport may also levy this fee after getting approval from the government. The GVK-led consortium operating and modernising the Mumbai airport has already applied for development fees of Rs 350 from every domestic passenger, and Rs 1,000 per international passenger, to cover its losses of around Rs 2,000 crore, owing to the slowdown in the real estate business and aviation sector.