By Ashok Kumar, Joint Secretary, Kamgar Ekta Committee
The Airport sector was reserved for the public sector until the launch of the policy of liberalization, privatization and globalization in 1991. Airports play a vital role in transport of goods and people, both within the country and outside.
As big capitalists saw a good opportunity of profit making, the airport sector in India was officially opened up to private and joint-venture participation with the introduction of the Policy on Airport Infrastructure in 1997 by the then Congress-led government. Since then, every political party which has led the central government has pursued the privatisation of airports.
Though airports require large amounts of land and capital, once built they generate steady income and profit. Indian monopoly capitalist groups have moved in a big way systematically to take over the airport sector. The central government owned AAI (Airorts Authority of India) is already smaller than the private companies in terms of revenue and passengers handled. Private corporates will further tighten their grip on this sector once the recently announced privatization of 11 more airports (Amritsar-Kangra (Gaggal), Varanasi-Gaya-Kushinagar, Bhubaneswar-Hubballi, Raipur-Aurangabad and Tiruchirappalli-Tirupati) is completed.
All the major airports with heavy traffic are already in private hands. Expansion and construction of new airports at big cities have been taken over by private capitalists. Small airports are being modernised and expanded using public money by the AAI, a and then they are being handed over to private operators. Wherever a state government builds a new airport, its operation is privatised.
The public-private partnership is the preferred model of privatisation as the task of arranging a large piece of land for expansion/new construction is taken care of by the government. The losses are borne by the government. Windfall profits are made by the capitalists. The money invested by the capitalists is actually public money in the hands of the Public Sector banks, which is borrowed by the capitalists at extremely low rates of interest.
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Step by step privatisation of airports
The privatisation of airports began in the 1990s when Cochin International Airport was built under a public-private partnership (PPP) model and opened in 1999.
In the mid-2000s, the construction and operation of new airports at Hyderabad and Bengaluru was awarded to private groups.
The privatisation of the country’s two biggest and busiest airports at Delhi and Mumbai airports was done in 2006 under a public-private partnership (PPP) model using an Operation, Management and Development Agreement (OMDA). This also gave rights of development to very valuable land at Mumbai airport to Adani groupand at Delhi airport to GMR group.
The control of Mumbai airport also gave the right to Adani group to build and operate the second international airport at Navi Mumbai.
The next major tranche of airport privatisation was done in February 2019, when six major airports at Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati were privatised and awarded to the Adani group.
When it was decided to build a second international airport in Goa at Mopa, it was handed over to GMR which also runs the Delhi airport.
The second international airport near Delhi has been built using public money by the UP government but its operation has been handed over to an international airport operator, Zurich Airport of Switzerland.
In June 2026, the operation and expansion of Nagpur airport was handed over to the GMR group.
The construction and operation of the new airport at Visakhapatnam have also been handed over to a private group, GMR.
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Airport privatization is leading to creation of private monopolies in this sector with full support of the government, as has happened in the case of telecom. Monopolization leads to super-profits at the cost of users of goods and services.
Private monopolies charge exorbitant user fees from the passengers. They charge huge fees from the airlines for landing, parking and in the form of other usage charges. The airlines transfer these costs onto the passengers. Furthermore, the passengers are forced to pay huge monies for parking and other services in the airport.
Privatisation of airports is against the interests of airport workers and people. Airports have been built with public money. Handing them over for private profit is not acceptable.
Workers of AAI have been opposing privatisation and have succeeded in stopping privatisation of Chennai and Kolkata airports. Airport workers deserve the support of the entire working class people of the country.