MIL fails to connect to South East Asian cities

Nagpur:Mihan India Limited (MIL) may have initiated the process to rope in a private partner for developing Nagpur airport, but the company has been facing losses in running the airport since it took over in 2009. The airport will have to increase passenger traffic to beef up revenue and earn any profits. However, despite repeated attempts, MIL has failed to get foreign airlines operating in the South East Asia circuit to start operations from Nagpur.MIL is a joint venture between the state government’s Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) and the Airports Authority of India (AAI). Under bilateral agreements, foreign airlines can operate to South East Asian destinations only through limited airports. There are 17-18 airports open for foreign players and Nagpur is not one of them. Recently, another attempt was made to include Nagpur in the list. However, it did not succeed, said a source in the MIL management.
The government’s argument was that there are already nearby centres like Mumbai which cater to this sector. In this case, there was no scope to include Nagpur in the list, the source said. Though domestic players can start flights, there has been no proposals from an Indian carrier so far.
There have been losses of Rs4 crore each year on an average since 2009. Though 2011 was an exception, but the profit was marginal running into a few lakhs only, said the MIL source.
Expenditure toward deploying Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) is one of the major reasons for the losses. In order to cover up, the airport needs to increase both passenger and cargo traffic.
Now, there is a thrust on the Middle East sector. Qatar Airways, which has recently started its services from Nagpur, covers major centres in Europe as well as US through the Middle East. The domestic airlines operating from Nagpur are Air India, Indigo, Go Air, and Jet Airways. Recently, Hyderabad-based Trujet started services from Nagpur to Hyderabad, connecting the temple town of Tirupati.