New Delhi, Aug. 30 -- Earlier this month, the Union government proposed to privatize 11 more airports via the public-private partnership (PPP) route. This comes exactly 20 years after Delhi and Mumbai became the first Indian airports to be privatized, followed by another lot of six airports in 2020-21.

The experience of these older airports shows that the PPP route has benefited all stakeholders - the government, private airport operators and consumers. While the 11 airports to be offered next are significantly smaller than the previous lot in terms of passenger traffic, operational scale and future possibilities, expectations from this exercise will be similar: to unlock value in airports currently owned and operated by the government....