Adani Group takes management control of Mumbai International Airport from GVK Group

The company said: “With India becoming to be the world's third-largest aviation market by 2024, the addition of the Mumbai International Airport to the Adani Group’s existing portfolio of six airports, and thereafter the operationalization of the greenfield Navi Mumbai International Airport Limited (NMIAL) provides a transformational aviation platform allowing the Adani Group to interlink its B2B and B2C business as well as create several strategic adjacencies for the Group’s other B2B businesses.”

AAHL will begin the construction of the Navi Mumbai International Airport next month and complete the financial closure in the next 90 days. This new international airport will be commissioned in 2024.

“Our larger objective is to reinvent airports as ecosystems that drive local economic development and act as the nuclei around which we can catalyse aviation-linked businesses. These include metropolitan developments that span entertainment facilities, e-commerce and logistics capabilities, aviation dependent industries, smart city developments, and other innovative business concepts,” said Gautam Adani.

He added: “Our airport expansion strategy is intended to help converge our nation’s Tier 1 cities with the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in a hub and spoke model. This is fundamental to enabling a greater equalization of India’s urban-rural divide, as well as making international travel seamless and smooth. I believe that the economic value that cities create will be maximized around airports and the cities of tomorrow will be built with the airport as the focal point. This is a fundamental lever for modern world development and the rapid build-out of our airport infrastructure will create multiple employment structures that generate thousands of new job opportunities.”

AAHL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, had earlier this year acquired a 23.5 percent stake in the Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) from ACSA Global (ACSA) and Bid Services Division (Mauritius), or Bidvest, for Rs 1,685.25 crore.

The stake acquisition was part of the Adani Group's plan to take over controlling stake in MIAL.

Recently, Adani Group had received permission to operate Lucknow, Jaipur, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, and Mangaluru airports through the public-private partnership (PPP) model.

AAHL, which is now India's largest airport infrastructure company, accounts for 25 percent of airport footfalls and also controls 33 percent of India’s air cargo traffic.