AERA to issue fresh consultation paper on BIA user development fee

The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) on Wednesday announced its decision to issue a fresh consultation paper on revising the user development fee (UDF) for the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) and seek stakeholder consultation.

It also extended till September 25, its deadline for the BIA stakeholders to respond to an earlier consultation paper. This could potentially delay the collection of revised UDF which was tentatively scheduled to begin on October 1.

The Union Ministry of Civil Aviation had sought time till November 1 to furnish its comments on the AERA consultation paper dated June 26.

The Authority had earlier received the comments from the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL). The fresh UDF calculations submitted by BIAL were being separately examined, AERA maintained.

The AERA had earlier rejected a BIAL proposal to hike the UDF by 240 per cent for domestic and by 70 per cent for international passengers. In its Consultation Paper, the Authority had instead proposed Rs. 262.32 for domestic and Rs. 1,049.27 for passengers heading out and arriving from foreign destinations to BIA.

After initial reluctance, BIAL had indicated its approval for a 30 per cent cross subsidisation on a Hybrid-Till model, to ensure a workable solution. Under this model, the UDF is calculated by taking into account all the aeronautical and 30 per cent of the non-aeronautical revenue.