The Rs 50,000-Crore Airport Fee Battle in the Supreme Court - Will Your Ticket Get Costlier?

Imagine a family in Faridabad trying to book four tickets to visit their grandparents in Mumbai.

- TDG NETWORK

Aerial / wide shot of Delhi's IGI Airport - terminals + runways with aircraft parked.

They're already comparing airline apps and hunting for discounts. What they don’t see is a much bigger number hanging over those fares: a Rs 50,000-crore dispute now in the Supreme Court that could quietly send airport charges - and therefore ticket prices - sharply high-erat Delhi and Mumbai.

That fight pits the two privatized airports, DIAL and MIAL, against the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (AERA), with the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) and now the Union government wedged in between.

WHAT IS THIS CASE ACTUALLY ABOUT?

At its core is something called the “Hypothetical Regulatory Asset Base” (HRAB) - a mouthful that simply means this: when AERA started regulating tariffs in 2009, it had to guess the opening value of the airports’ assets for the first five-year control period, because the old public owner kept common books for many airports. So, HRAB was created as an imaginary starting balance sheet, and tariffs for 2008-14 were calculated on that base.