Flying out of Mumbai? Be ready to pay user development fee

Passengers flying out of Mumbai will have to shell out Rs 346 for a domestic flight and Rs 692 for flying on international routes from Feb 1, after the Airport Economic Regulatory of India (AERA) approved Mumbai International Airport'sproposal to introduce these charges.

This is in addition to Rs 100 and Rs 600  passengers are paying toward airport development fee for domestic and international travel respectively.

GVK Power led consortium which runs the airport had a cost over-run of over 20% due to land acquistion hurdles taking the cost of the airport to nearly Rs 12,000 crore.

The move will certainly not enthuse travellers who are already paying herfty fares on high density metro city routes. Passenger associations had made a noise when Delhi airport started charging developmet fee last year  which was later brought down to Rs 100 and Rs 700 on domestic and international travel.

In addition to levy of UDF, the regulator has also approved a 154 percent  hike in landing and parking charges at the Mumbai airport which means airlines will also have to shell out incremental charges to what they are already paying.