ISLAMABAD: The fate of outsourcing of Islamabad International Airport hangs in balance as only one consortium led by Turkish company participated in the bidding process and offered 46 percent shares in the gross revenue for the Airport Authority.
However, Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has given the reserved price of 56 percent in the gross revenue share for the Airport Authority so the Advisor of the Transaction—International Finance Corporation (IFC) has given time frame till Thursday (today) for matching the offered price from 46 per cent to 56 per cent of the gross revenues of the Islamabad Airport to the government for making this deal successful.
“The IFC may reply back to the authorities concerned maximum by next week so it is yet to see whether this deal materialises or not within next few days” top sources confirmed while talking to The News here on Wednesday.
The gross revenue of Islamabad International Airport has been estimated in the range of Rs34 billion on per annum basis and after deduction of air navigation and other charges the net revenues stood at Rs16-17 billion.
A consortium comprised of Terminal Yapi Ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Erg Insaat Ticaret Sanayi Anonim Serketi and Erg International UK Ltd is the bidder.
Islamabad International Airport serves the capital of Pakistan and acts as the gateway to the capital of the country and the northern areas of Pakistan.
It was operationalized in 2018 after which airport operations were shifted from the old airport (called Benazir Bhutto International Airport). It is located 30 kilometres outside of the city and is easily accessible by road. The new airport marked an increase in capacity from 3 mpax to 9 mpax.
The airport served 4.8 mpax in FY22 making it the second busiest airport in Pakistan. It is also the third biggest airport in terms of handling cargo traffic. Traffic has almost recovered to pre-Covid levels with significant spare capacity left. The airport serves as a base for the national flag carrier, Pakistan International Airlines and serves a wide range of Middle Eastern carriers.
Two commercial aprons North West Apron and South East Apron, a Cargo Apron and a State Lounge Apron all with good pavement classification numbers and compliant with ICAO requirements. Total number of stands are 33 with 28 in the commercial aprons, 3 in the Cargo Apron and 2 in the State Lounge Apron.
In terms of aircraft type, there are 7 stands for Category C aircraft, 8 for Category D, 14 for Category E and 4 for Category F (For the purposes of assessing apron capacity, aircrafts are classified according to the length of wingspan with higher alphabets representing longer wingspans).
Stands 3-9 on the South East Apron and 17-25 on the North West Apron have passenger boarding bridges. Out of these all stands on the South East Apron and 2 stands on the North West Apron are utilized for international flights. Advanced Visual Docking Guidance System and fuel hydrants are available at all stands. The Islamabad Airport terminal building spans a total area of 180,000m2 and consists of three floors with passenger arrival and departure facilities.
The growth has mainly been driven by a rise in international passengers with domestic passengers remaining more or less constant. This is because the domestic traffic is dominated by the Islamabad-Karachi route accounting for 64% of the traffic. Total passengers in FY22 equaled 4.8 million making it the second busiest airport in Pakistan having 31% of the passenger traffic and 20 per cent of cargo traffic. There are approximately 4 million passengers in the immediate catchment area of Karachi is the main route from Islamabad airport accounting for 20% of all routes.
The route is almost entirely operated by domestic airlines with varying market shares including PIA (27%), Air Sial (26 per cent), Serene Air (23 per cent) and Air Blue (20 per cent).
Busiest international routes include Dubai, Jeddah, Riyadh, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Istanbul with PIA enjoying the dominant share of around 30 per cent Predominant foreign carriers include Saudia (9 per cent), Qatar Airways (8 per cent) and Emirates (6 per cent) which operate the Middle Eastern routes.
Most of the traffic is served by origin and destination (O&D) passengers with an average of 77 per cent over the last ten years. This is due to a combination of religious reasons (Haj and Umrah for Saudi Arabia), leisure (UAE) and presence of a strong diaspora in Middle Eastern countries.
The remaining traffic destined for US, UK and EU countries also utilizes the Middle East for connections. This trend has increased since the ban of direct PIA flights to these countries.
International markets are served mostly by wide body aircrafts (B777, A330) while domestic markets are served by the narrow bodied A320 and B737.
Total number of passengers are expected to increase from current levels of 4.8 mpax to 23.5 mpax in FY55.