Dubai, UAE, March 12, 2015: GMR, one of the worlds leading airport developers, is hopeful about adding five more airports to its operations portfolio by 2018, a senior official told aconference in Dubai today.

Pradeep Panicker, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), a subsidiary of GMR Infrastructure, told the Future of Borders conference that the aviation industry in India was undergoing major infrastructure transformation with airports modernization and expansion under focus.

DIAL is a joint venture company among GMR Group, Airports Authority of India, Fraport and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad. GMR currently operates Delhi and Hyderabad international airports. Delhi airports passenger handling capacity has grown to 40 million. Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, operated by GMR, has grown two and a half times in nine years. GMR, according to the visiting official, is hopeful about operating five more airports by 2018.
Last year, Delhi airport passenger traffic grew seven per cent to 37 million, while it jumped four per cent to nine million in Hyderabad airport. GMR owns 54 per cent stake in the Delhi International Airport and 63 per cent of the Hyderabad Airport. We are planning to introduce more systems to enhance the passenger experience.In order to eliminate long queues, we will be introducing self-service and pre-validation, QR code and automation, he said at the Future of Airports session at the conference organized by the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Dubai (GDRFA-Dubai).
India is now the ninth largest aviation market in the world and expected to become the third biggest by 2020with enhanced airport system that can handle 336 million domestic and 41 million international passengers.

The government has envisaged an investment of $12.1 billion in the airport sector during 12th plan period, of which $12.1 billion will come from private sector. This investment would help in modernization and development of airports.The government's move to privatize airports at Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Chennai has generated interest among the airport infrastructure developers, including the GMR. All these airports are currently under the state-owned Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the government plans to offer them for operation, management and development to private sector companies through the PPP model.

According to a report by global consultancy, KPMG, Indias fast-growing civil aviation sector, already among the top 10 globally, could be number one worldwide by 2030. The US$16-billion sector is on a high-growth track thanks to large untapped potential, it said, noting access to aviation is still a dream for nearly 99.5 per cent of Indias 1.2 billion population. The US airplane maker, Boeing, projected demand for over 1,600 new airplanes in India over the next 20 years, valued at $205 billion.

Traffic data from the Airports Authority of India (AAI) shows that passenger numbers in the year to March 2014 reached 169 million, an increase of six per cent on the previous 12 month period.

This makes the Indian air travel market slightly bigger than France, whose airports handled just over 161 million passengers during 2013.
All of Indias top 15 airports reported growth, Indias two largest airports in Delhi and Mumbai both grew by around seven per cent, with Delhi handling almost 37 million passengers. Indias airports have reported passenger growth of 7.3 per cent to over 46 million in the second quarter of 2014.

Domestic demand has risen by 7.4 per cent to about 34 million, while international traffic has increased by seven per cent to 12.3 million. Mumbai was the fastest-growing among Indias top six busiest airports seeing passenger numbers rise by 9.2 per cent to 8.8 million in the period April to June 2014.