New Delhi: Passengers arriving at Hyderabad airport will have to pay a user development fee (UDF) from 1 September, a first for the airport, as the tariff regulator changes how operators recover infrastructure costs by splitting the charge between arriving and departing passengers.
The cost of a new airport (asset) can be recovered through UDF only after it is ready and brought into operation, not while it’s under construction. The order mirrors the approach of the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (AERA) a week earlier for Bengaluru airport.
In its 24 August order, AERA fixed the UDF for domestic passengers arriving at Hyderabad at ₹220 and international arriving passengers at ₹440. The UDF for departing passengers was cut to ₹515 for domestic travellers from ₹750, and to ₹1,030 for international passengers from ₹1,500. The reduction was 31% for both domestic and international departing passengers.
“Revised UDF charges will be applicable on tickets issued on or after 1 September 2026,” AERA said in the order.
UDF is typically charged by airlines as part of the fare and passed on to the airport operator. The new tariff for GMR Airports-managed GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL), which operates Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, runs through March 2031.
“UDF has been determined for both embarking and disembarking passengers,” AERA said, citing the use of infrastructure including aerobridges, travelators and conveyor belts by both categories. Allocating the fee between the two categories would provide “a more equitable distribution of the tariff burden.”
The regulator said GHIAL had proposed ₹580 for domestic departures and ₹1,150 for international departures.
In FY26, passenger traffic handled at Hyderabad airport was 30.5mn, up by 3.4% y-o-y from 29.5mn in FY25. FY26 was the highest yearly traffic on record, GMR airports had said in a statement.
Domestic traffic increased by 2.4% y-o-y while international traffic increased by 8.2% y-o-y, it said.
Departures make up for 82% of the passenger traffic at Hyderabad airport, an Industry executive said.
The domestic departure UDF is not a flat five-year rate. It rises to ₹555 in 2027-28, ₹620 in 2028-29 and ₹670 from April to October 2029, before falling to ₹415 in November 2029. Domestic arrival UDF rises from ₹220 to ₹240, ₹265 and ₹285 before falling to ₹175 in November 2029.
International arrival UDF rises from ₹440 to ₹465 in 2027-28, ₹485 in 2028-29 and ₹500 by April-October 2029, before falling to ₹375 from November 2029 and ₹390 in the final year.
These are baseline fees that may be revised as new projects at the airport become operational. AERA has used 1 November 2029 as the effective date for computing additional charges linked to the completion and commissioning of Hyderabad's Northern Runway and Northern Precinct Development projects. AERA said the approach would “protect the airport users from premature tariff for assets that are not yet operational.”
GMR Airports had proposed about ₹14,000 crore of capital expenditure across its airports from FY27 to FY31. For Hyderabad, AERA included the Northern Runway and the Northern Precinct Development works, both of which are scheduled for commissioning on 30 September 2029. The Northern Precinct project features a new passenger terminal designed to handle an extra 20 million passengers annually.
The passenger impact is set out in the tariff schedule. The Northern Runway would add ₹122 to the UDF for a domestic departing passenger and ₹52 for a domestic arriving passenger. For international passengers, the additions are ₹175 on departure and ₹75 on arrival.
