COVID-19 impact | Delhi International Airport posts loss of Rs 317 crore for FY2020-21

DIAL's revenue from operations came in at Rs 2,423.47 crore for 2020-21 as compared to Rs 3,909.42 crore reported in 2019-20.

Just a year after reporting a net profit of Rs 13.15 crore (for fiscal 2019-20), the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has once again dragged the bottom line of Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) back into the red, as the company has reported a net loss of Rs 317.4 crore for the year ended March 31, 2021.

The fall in the company's bottom line was primarily due to a 41 percent fall in its total revenue which fell as domestic and international flights were halted following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic on March 26, 2020, to May 25, 2020.

Even after May, domestic flights were only allowed to operate at 33 percent capacity by the central government and domestic air traffic in India recovered slowly and in phases as the pandemic continued.

DIAL's revenue from operations came in at Rs 2,423.47 crore for 2020-21 as compared to Rs 3,909.42 crore reported in 2019-20 as passenger traffic at the Indira Gandhi International airport decreased by 66% on year to 23.5 million in 2020-21.

However, the result was much better than the estimates made by DIAL in December 2020, the company back then had estimated it will suffer a loss of Rs 1,330 crore in 2020-21, against a profit of Rs 383 crore in 2019-20.

The operator of Indira Gandhi International Airport said that its revenues from aeronautical operations fell by nearly 58 percent in 2020-21 coming in at around Rs 400 crore as against Rs 950 crore reported in 2019-20.

Aero revenues, which include passenger service fees, landing and parking charges for airlines, were down due to low airport tariffs for the ongoing control period.

The GMR Infra subsidiary reported a 40.2 percent on-year fall in its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) to Rs 781.8 crore in FY21 from Rs 1,306.2 crore a year ago.

However, the company's EBITDA margin rose slightly to 31 percent in 2020-21 from 30.8% in 2019-20.

The DIAL had in December 2020 also invoked a force majeure clause to suspend the revenue-share agreement with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) as the COVID-19 pandemic had hit traffic flow and revenue.

The force majeure helped bring down the DIAL's total expenses as annual fees to AAI fell to Rs 338.12 crore in 2020-21 from Rs 1,848.67 crore in 2019-20.

The fall in annual fees to AAI brought the company's total expenses down to Rs 3,005.2 crore in 2020-21 from Rs 4,242.3 crore the previous year, which helped the company maintain its EBITDA margins.

According to the agreement signed between AAI and DIAL in 2006 - as part of the privatisation process of Delhi Airport - DIAL pays 45.99 percent of its annual revenue as concession fee to AAI.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic also resulted in DIAL's other expenses rising to Rs 1,188.8 crore in 2020-21 from Rs 879.3 crore the previous year, as the airport operator had to carry out COVID-19 appropriate procedures like sanitation of the airport terminal building, setting up of testing centers, etc to carry out operations.

Non-aeronautical revenues which include retail, F&B, and advertising were down 51 percent on-year to Rs 1,278.2 crore on account of lower passenger footfall at the airport.