Noida airport to charge 4x higher user development fees than Delhi’s IGI airport: Aera

NEW DELHI: The country’s airport regulator has allowed Noida International Airport to charge domestic passengers user development fees (UDF) that are almost four times the tariff levied at the capital’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. The UDF is less than what the new airport had sought.

Domestic passengers flying out of Noida airport will pay a UDF of ₹490, while arriving passengers will pay ₹210 in the first tariff period from 15 June 2026 to 31 March 2027, the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (Aera) said on Tuesday. The UDF at New Delhi’s IGIA is ₹129 for departures and ₹56 for arrivals.

From 1 April next year until 31 March 2031, Noida airport can increase its prices by 5-11%, thereby raising the UDF for domestic passengers flying from the airport to ₹693 by FY31, while it will be ₹297 for those arriving.

Zurich Airport International AG-owned Noida airport, which is expected to start commercial operations on 15 June, had sought a UDF of ₹653 for domestic departures and ₹282 for arrivals. Airlines collect UDF from passengers as part of the fare and pass them on to airport operators.

“The airlines will have to take a call on ticket pricing. It depends on demand and supply factors, including timeslots. In the same airport, flights half an hour apart, by the same airline, have different ticket pricing,” said Satyan Nayar, secretary general of the Association of Private Airport Operations.

Noida Airport is located in Jewar, Uttar Pradesh, about 55 km from Noida and about 100 km from Delhi’s IGI Airport. Both airports are in the National Capital Region.

Built at a cost of ₹11,200 crore, the first phase of Noida airport can handle 12 million passengers annually. IndiGo and Akasa Air are scheduled to be the first airlines to start operations from Noida.

Unfair comparison

At least one consultant said comparing UDF between Noida and Delhi airports is “a bit unfair.”

“Noida is a greenfield airport and recovery of capital costs in the initial years will be higher than at a mature airport like Delhi,” said Gurmukh Singh Bawa, secretary general of the Air Travellers’ Association. “However, being a new airport, there should not have been any fees charged on domestic arrivals. That would have made it competitive and also benefited users.”

Bawa said jet fuel tax is only 1% at Noida airport compared with 25% in Delhi.

“That advantage, of lower tax on jet fuel, does not seem to play out now as ticket prices are similar across an operator, whether operating from Delhi or Noida. That could have been factored in to make the airport more attractive,” he added.

Aera has yet to approve the UDF at the Adani-owned Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA), which started operating in December. For now, the new airport in the country’s financial capital levies a UDF of ₹620 on domestic departures and ₹270 on domestic arrivals. That compares with a UDF of ₹175 for departures and ₹75 for arrivals at Mumbai’s old airport.

NMIA sought to levy a fee of ₹742 and ₹323 for domestic passengers flying in and flying out of the city in FY28, a 20% increase over the existing rates.

Adani owns both the airports in Mumbai – Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport and NMIA. GMR owns IGIA in New Delhi.