New Delhi, November 3: Adani Airport Holdings Ltd (AAHL) will not launch its own airline, the company's chief executive Arun Bansal said on Tuesday, telling the Aviation India and South Asia 2026 conference in the national capital that airlines are AAHL's customers and "it is never a good strategy to compete with your customers", The Hindu BusinessLine reported.

Source: The Hindu BusinessLine

There had been reports that the Adani Group is keen to get into the airline business, but the group has denied such reports, and Bansal made it clear that AAHL and the Adani Group should be segregated in this context, BusinessLine added.

Bansal said India should have three national carriers to support its growing aviation market and strengthen its position in international air travel, stressing the need to build globally competitive domestic airlines before opening up the sector to greater international competition, news agency ANI reported.

Source: ANI

He said India's passenger traffic was forecast to increase nearly fourfold, from around 300 million currently to 1.1-1.2 billion by 2040-45, ANI said.

8airports in AAHL's portfolio
~100 millionpassengers handled annually at present
300 millionannual passenger target over the next 10 years
USD 10-11 billioninvestment planned over the next 7 years

On investment, Bansal said Adani Airports planned to invest USD 10-11 billion (yaani roughly Rs 95,000 crore to Rs 1.04 lakh crore) over the next seven years across airport infrastructure, non-aeronautical businesses and city-side development in India. AAHL, which currently has eight airports in its portfolio and handles around 100 million passengers annually, aims to increase that number to 300 million over the next ten years, and will participate in the government's next airport privatisation round involving 11 airports, ANI reported.

Bansal said the company was accelerating Phase 2 of the Navi Mumbai airport, which is planned to have a capacity of 50 million passengers by 2030, while at the existing Mumbai airport the redevelopment of Terminal 1 is expected to raise the combined capacity of the two terminals from 55 million to nearly 65 million passengers. Mumbai and Navi Mumbai airports are both part of AAHL's portfolio, BusinessLine noted.

What happens next: AAHL's stated path is to grow as an airport operator rather than an airline — bidding in the 11-airport privatisation round, expanding Navi Mumbai in phases and rebuilding Mumbai's Terminal 1 — while the question of how many large Indian carriers the market can sustain remains with airlines and policymakers.