Business jet owners wrestle with Adani-owned Mumbai airport over eviction notice

Some of Mumbai’s corporate titans such as Essar Group, Aditya Birla Group, JSW Steel and Taj Group are fuming over an eviction order targeting their business jets at the Adani-owned Chhatrapati Shivaji Mumbai International Airport (CSMIA). Industry insiders claim the move is a strong-arm tactic to force them to relocate to the soon-to-open Navi Mumbai airport, also under Adani’s control.

Adding fuel to fire, Navi Mumbai airport has decided to levy a ₹20 crore parking stand fee, plus an annual fee, a rate which some call “illegal”, arguing that only the tariff regulator has the authority to fix such charges. The move has also worried chartered plane service providers who offer private air travel. They said clients will prefer the old Mumbai airport because of its proximity to posh areas of the city known for its traffic jams.

This means charter operators will have to drop them there and fly to Navi Mumbai for parking and as a result, there will be a 30% rise in costs due to extra fuel burn on top of which there will be additional expense for using two airports.

A spokesperson of the Adani Airport Holding Limited (AAHL) told The Hindu, the relocation was necessitated to develop and improve capacity at CSMIA. It maintains that the fees for parking stands would be determined through an open bidding process, based on market demand and other factors. The AAHL is the largest airport operator in the country with eight airports in its fold that altogether record 23-25% passenger traffic . In other words, one in four air travellers make use of its airports.

On March 30, Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) handed over termination letters to several corporate houses to vacate the parking space used by them by July 31, 2025 for the construction of a taxiway for aircraft. The airport operator said this was necessary for carrying out airport development works that include the construction of a parallel taxiway as well as enhancement of one of the two runways.

In its response, the Business Aircraft Operators’ Association (BAOA) has opposed the move taken “unilaterally” and asserted they were not squatters occupying parking space in an unauthorised manner, but paying prescribed rental. They have said that the eviction was “contrary to the principles governing public infrastructure management.”

The industry body representing business aircraft operators has written to the tariff regulator, Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA), demanding that CSMIA must increase its parking capacity which is the “most critical requirement” at the airport. They have also demanded a viable alternative during either temporary or permanent relocation which should be at no additional cost to the operators as such an additional expense was “legally unjustifiable” and warned of “judicial scrutiny”.

The submission from the BAOA was made as part of industry consultations for revision of tariff for Mumbai airport for the tariff cycle 2024-2029.

Essar, Aditya Birla and JSW didn’t respond to emails. The Hindu was unable to reach AERA Chairman, SKG Rahate, for a comment.

“It is categorically affirmed that all development and expansion activities at Mumbai International Airport (MIAL/CSMIA), being a public airport under applicable law, must be undertaken strictly in accordance with the statutory and regulatory framework governing public airports in India, including the Aircraft Act, 1934, the Airports Authority of India Act, and the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India Act, 2008 (AERA Act),” Group Captain (Retired) R.K. Bali, MD of BAOA, told The Hindu.

According to Section 2(a) of the AERA Act, landing and parking charges are classified as aeronautical services and are subject to regulatory oversight and control.

The ₹20 crore parking stand fee at the new airport is in sharp contrast to the nominal fee currently levied at the old airport. For a mid-size business jet such as a Dassault Falcon 2000 weighing 9,500 kg, an operator would have to pay ₹106 for 2.5 hours to 3.5 hour as parking charge at the current rate of ₹11.22 per metric tonne. The airport allowed 24 jets to also park overnight at the same rate, that included primarily those aircraft owned by business houses headquartered in Mumbai.

Navi Mumbai has also priced its hangars or space used for aircraft storage, maintenance, and repair at ₹200 crore for 10 years and a security deposit of ₹100 crore, according to industry sources, who said this has deterred some players with existing hangar space at CSMIA from seeking the same facility at Navi Mumbai.

Charter service providers say dropping off clients at the old airport and then flying to Navi Mumbai airport for parking will entail an additional hour spent in air and on ground resulting in fuel costs alone going up by nearly ₹1.5 lakh on a trip cost of ₹5.5 lakh per hour of aircraft usage. This means the additional fuel burn will result in a hike in cost by 30%. Along with an increase in other operational costs, there could be an impact on demand from customers.

Business jet operators aren’t the only ones who are unhappy. Commercial airlines, including international ones, are upset at the owner of the two Mumbai airports asking them to either shift all their flights lock, stock and barrel or move partial operations to Navi Mumbai. The global body representing airlines protested against this move on their behalf during a consultation meeting of AERA last month.

“We would recommend that the airport operator should not use its position as the operator of a ‘Two airport system in Mumbai’ to forcefully move traffic around to essentially kickstart operations at NMIA,” Amitabh Khosla, country director – India, International Air Transport Association, said at the event

Navi Mumbai airport is set for inauguration in June, nearly two months behind schedule. The airport’s first phase will see the opening of one runway and a terminal with passenger handling capacity of 20 million passengers per year.

The airport aims to record 10 million passengers in its first year of operations. The planned renovation of CSMIA’s Terminal 1 will also result in shifting of flights to Navi Mumbai. While the old airport is a public-private partnership between AAHL (76% stakeholding) and Airports Authority of India (24%), the new airport at Navi Mumbai is also a 74:26 joint venture between AAHL and City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO).