Delhi airport: International passengers to pay higher UDF; rate unchanged for domestic flyers

New Delhi: Flying out of the Delhi airport will become expensive for international passengers from April 16, with regulator AERA approving higher and variable user development fees for economy and business class travellers.

Taking into consideration that 80 per cent of the traffic at the airport is domestic, AERA has decided to leave the User Development Fee (UDF) for domestic passengers unchanged at Rs 129 for the fourth control period.

Currently, the UDF is uniform for both domestic and international passengers. The domestic UDF for embarking passengers is Rs 129 and for disembarking passengers is Rs 56.

Besides, the landing charges will be different for wide-body and narrow-body planes on both domestic and international segments.

With the revision, the UDF for embarking economy class international passengers will jump 404 per cent and in the case of business class passengers, the increase will be 528 per cent.

Under the revised tariff regime, international passengers flying economy class from the airport will have to pay a UDF of Rs 650 and for those landing here, the rate will be Rs 275.

In the case of international business class passengers, the UDF will be Rs 810 for embarking and Rs 345 for disembarking passengers, respectively, the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) said in a release on Friday.

The watchdog said that airport operator DIAL had proposed a 730 per cent increase in prevailing airport charges.

"However, after conducting a thorough analysis and applying prudence checks to each regulatory building block, AERA has determined a significantly lower increase of 140 per cent over the existing airport charges.

"This adjustment will enable the airport operator to meet essential capital expenditure requirements, maintain operational efficiency and ensure service quality in line with the standards outlined in the State Support Agreement (SSA) and the Operation, Management and Development Agreement (OMDA)," it said.

Explaining the rationale behind having a differential rate of UDF for the international economy and business class passengers, AERA said it aligns with the 'user pays' principle and reflects the enhanced passenger experience and expanded facilities available and used by international travellers.

"The landing and parking charges for the airlines have also been rationalised and kept at reasonable levels, considering competitive airport charges at similar airports.

"This ensures that airline operations are not unduly burdened and that operational efficiency is maintained," it said.

The landing charge for wide-body aircraft will be Rs 564 and Rs 785 for domestic and international segments, respectively.

For narrow-body planes, the rate will be Rs 347 for domestic and Rs 570 for international flights, as per AERA.

The revised tariffs will be applicable from April 16, 2025 to March 31, 2029.

The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), operated by the GMR Group-led consortium DIAL, is the country's largest airport.

After a comprehensive review of stakeholder inputs, AERA has decided to fix the yield per passenger at Rs 432 per departing passenger.

"UDF has now been determined for both embarking and disembarking passenger as a significant portion of the airport infrastructure including aerobridges, travelators, conveyor belt, arrival facilities insider the terminal building are also being used by the disembarking passengers," the watchdog said.

AERA also said that distributing the overall UDF charges between embarking and disembarking passengers in a suitable proportion of their actual usage of airport facilities would lead to an equitable distribution of the tariff burden amongst the users of the airport.

It would also spread out the costs amongst all airport users.