COMMENTARY
INTERVIEW
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Kozhikode airport work at a standstill

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

The expansion work of the Kozhikode airport in Kerala has almost come to a standstill with the Housing and Urban Development Corporation undertaking a review of its commitment to fund the $25.7-million project. The agency, which has paid $10.57 million of the promised $17.14 million, has refused to release further instalments following a stalemate over the levy of the user's fee.

While a division bench of the Kerala high court has stayed the single bench's order restraining the Malabar International Airport Developments Society from collecting a user's fee of Rs 500 per passenger from those travelling abroad, HUDCO remains apprehensive about the final outcome of the public interest litigation.

The MIADS, which was set up solely for collecting the fee to meet the interest component of the loan, has no other source of revenue other than the user's fee. HUDCO is also upset over the stand taken by the chief minister's office that the fee may have to be axed if local resentment against it continues to mount.

The chief minister's thinking in this regard is apparently borne out of political compulsions since a large majority of the 1.7 million people from the region working in various Persian Gulf countries are against the additional levy. The fee was introduced by the previous United Democratic Front government after the Airport Authority of India expressed its inability to undertake the expansion work until AD 2004 and HUDCO came forward to meet part of the cost on the condition that AAI would repay the principal amount and MIADS the interest at the rate of 16.5 per cent.

The Malabar airport society has so far paid $2.63 million to HUDCO as interest. The state government, which had stood guarantee for the loan, has also expressed its inability to meet the interest burden owing to a resource crunch.

The immediate expansion of the airport was conceived as the topography at the Karippur airport made it unsafe for the A-320 aircraft to operate. These aircraft were currently being operated in the Muscat and United Arab Emirates sectors. The runway needed expansion from the present 6,000 feet to 9,000 feet to enable the operations of wide-bodied and long-haul aircraft like the A-300 and A-310 with normal tonnage. The project envisaged the expansion of the runaway to 9,000 feet in two phases. Work has been progressing ahead of schedule.

The Malabar airport society has approached Civil Aviation Minister C M Ibrahim to bail it out from the present tangle. The minister has been non-committal on the plea since no plan funds has been earmarked for the expansion of the Kozhikode airport. Moreover, the minister is keen to put in place the work on the proposed airport at Kannur.

The Malabar airports society is now planning to approach both Indian Airlines and Air-India since they stand to benefit immensely from the expansion. Indian Airlines, which is already earning its highest revenue of $32.86 million from the Kozhikode airport through both national and international operations, will be able to exploit the highly traffic intensive Kuwait and Saudi sectors once the expansion is completed.

Similarly, Air-India will also be able to garner considerable international traffic from the region since no foreign airline is expected to be allowed to operate from the Kozhikode airport. However, Air-India has already committed a sizeable investment in the Nodumbassery airport coming up at Cochin.

The Malabar airport society officials are worried that the stoppage of work at this juncture might lead to unaffordable cost revision and the shelving of the project midway.