In the presence of her Prime Minister, Turkey saw the ground breaking ceremony for the new terminal at Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Istanbul. The new terminal will add 10 million passengers to its existing capacity of 5 million passengers. Interestingly, Bangalore-based GMR Consortium won the bid for construction and operation of the new terminal (along with the existing terminal) for 20 years. The bids were won in July 2007 during a 14.5 hour long bidding process amidst touch competition from Germany’s Fraport, Italy’s Venice Airport, USA’s Chicago Airport and Italy’s TAV.
GMR is building and operating the green field airport in Hyderabad; it is also maintaining and upgrading Delhi airport.
GMR paid 1.9 billion Euros to get 20 year operation rights; it will invest 200 million Euros in building the new terminal. The existing operator landed over control effective 00-00 hour on May 1, 2008
One more case of Indian companies marching successfully in the global arena; we had seen Tatas, Infosys, Birlas, Wipro and Subex quietly taking over global companies. What is happening is exactly the opposite of what our misguided communists and socialists friends have been talking of another East India Company! The self-serving politicians have fooled our countrymen about the danger of globalization and the entry of multinationals; they want the monopoly of public sector so that the private interests of politicians can be well served!
Tags: GMR, Turkey Airport
