More Joint Bids for Airport Jobs

By Hamisah Hamid

NEW DELHI: India’s GMR Group plans to jointly bid with Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) and other partners to develop airports in Chennai and Prague, Czech Republic.

Delhi International Airport (P) Ltd (DIAL) associate vice- president of corporate communications, Arun Arora, said the bids for the airports are expected to open this year.

“We plan to work with MAHB. We believe in building strong relationship with our partners,” he told the Malaysian media here yesterday.

Bangalore-based infrastructure giant GMR has so far won the bid with MAHB and other partners to develop airports in Hyderabad and Delhi in India and Istanbul in Turkey.

The GMR-led consortium had clinched the contract to develop greenfield Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in Hyderabad and brownfield Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport (DIGIA) here, as well as greenfield Sabiha Gokcen airport in Istanbul.

MAHB holds an 11 per cent stake in RGIA and a 10 per cent stake in DIGIA, while GMR holds 63 per cent and 50.1 per cent of the two companies respectively.

Arun said partnership between GMR and MAHB started in 2000 when they, together with other partners, bid for the development of the Hyderabad airport.

He said GMR chose MAHB as its partner due to cultural factor.

“We are culturally aligned and it is important in managing people.

“We can buy any equipment, but when you manage people, you need cultural alignment,” he said.

Arun said the development of DIGIA is benchmarked against the KL International Airport in Sepang.

The first phase of the US$7.5 billion (RM24 billion) DIGIA is expected to be completed ahead of schedule.

“The first phase of the airport (DIGIA) is scheduled to be operational in March 2010,” he said. Sprawling across 2080 hectares, Phase One will cost US$2.25 billion (RM7.2 billion) to develop.

When all the phases of development are completed by 2026, DIGIA would be able to handle 100 million passengers per year.

It will also have 4,430m-long runway, which is one of Asia’s longest runways that can cater to aircraft as big as the A380 superjumbo.

Arun said MAHB is involved in DIGIA operations as well as managing the retail side, through its retail arm, Malaysia Airports (Niaga) Sdn Bhd or Eraman Malaysia.

(c) 2008 New Straits Times. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.