Zurich Airport to develop Delhi's second airport at Jewar

Zurich Airport has emerged as the highest bidder to develop and build the second international airport of Delhi-NCR at Jewar in Uttar Pradesh with a bid of Rs 400.97 per passenger. The airport has been awarded for a concession period of 40 years.

"Besides the necessary capital investments in the infrastructure, Flughafen Zürich AG shall pay a fixed passenger fee to the state-owned authority starting on the sixth anniversary of the commissioning of the new airport. Flughafen Zürich AG currently holds 100 percent of the project," Zurich Airport said.

Zurich Airport has surpassed the bids submitted by Adani group and GMR to win the construction award. While Adani group had submitted a bid of Rs 360 per passenger, Delhi International Airport had submitted a bid of Rs 351.

While GMR Group had the right of first refusal for this airport as it is being built within a 150-km radius of the existing airport in Delhi, its bid was over 10 percent lower than the highest bid and hence, the award went to Zurich, sources said. The fourth player in the race was Anchorage Infrastructure Holdings Ltd with a bid of Rs 205 per passenger.

"The above financial bid of Zurich airport international AG will be put up before PMIC (Project monitoring and implementation committee) on December 2, 2019," Shailendra Bhatia, Nodal office, Noida airport project said.

A positive development for the sector with an International developer emerging as the preferred bidder. “It will be important that all the external connectivity are addressed on a war footing and an unencumbered site for development is also given to the concessionaire at the earliest. Also imperative that the overall aviation growth trajectory comes back to low teens at the earliest," Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, director, CRISIL Infrastructure Advisory said.

On May 5, 2018, the union civil aviation ministry had granted in-principle approval to the state government of Uttar Pradesh for setting up of a Noida International Greenfield Airport near Jewar. Uttar Pradesh government had then appointed Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) as the implementing agency for the project.

As per the Greenfield Airport Policy, 2008, subsequent to grant of ''in principle'' approval to an airport project, all responsibilities regarding the execution of the project are the sole responsibility of the project proponent i.e. YEIDA in the case of Jewar Airport Project.

RITES Ltd has also been asked to conduct a study on Multi-Modal Urban Transit System connectivity from the proposed Noida Airport to Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), Delhi.

The first phase of the airport will be spread over a period from 2022-23 (April-March) to 2026-27 and will invite cost of Rs 4,588 crore. During this period, the airport will be able to handle 12 million passengers per annum. The second phase will incur an expenditure of Rs 5,983 crore and will be completed over a period from 2030-31 to 2031-32, raising the airport capacity to 30 million passengers per annum.

The third phase will start in 2035 and will continue until 2037 with an expenditure target of Rs 8,415 crore and will increase its airport capacity to 50 million passengers. The last phase will be conducted over a period of 10 years and an amount of Rs 10,575 crore is likely to be spent in that period, taking the annual capacity of 70 million passengers per annum.

"Flughafen Zürich AG is committed to offer the highest service quality to the passengers, airlines and other involved stakeholders in the new Noida International Airport,” the airport said.

Zurich Airport is not new to Indian aviation space. It had a stake in Bengaluru airport as well, which it completely exit in 2017. Currently, it is involved in eight airports in Latin America. Besides India, countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines are among the future focus markets, the airport said.