Decade after GMR’s ouster, AAI to study Maldives request to run airport
BILATERAL – INDIA-ASIA
1 JANUARY 2026
- The Centre has asked the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to study a request from the Maldives seeking assistance of Indian companies to manage its recently upgraded Hanimaadhoo International Airport.
- The request comes more than a decade after the Maldives government abruptly terminated a contract with Indian infrastructure conglomerate GMR to develop the Male International Airport and evicted the company’s staff from the island.
- The request for assistance was made during the inauguration of the airport on November 9, 2025, by President Mohamed Muizzu to Civil Aviation Minister K. Rammohan Naidu, who was present as a special envoy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
- The AAI manages 26 State government airports, in addition to owning 113 airports in the country.
- Thirteen AAI-owned airports are managed by private operators such as GMR, GVK, and the Adani Group, which has seven AAI airports under its purview, apart from Navi Mumbai.
- India supported the redevelopment and expansion work at the Hanimaadhoo airport that has been operational since 1986 with a $800 million line of credit issued by EXIM Bank of India.
- Redevelopment work was contracted to an Indian company, JMC Projects, at a cost of $136.6 million.
- The upgrade features a 2,465-metre runway capable of accommodating an Airbus A320 aircraft and a new passenger building designed to handle 1.3 million flyers annually.
- In November 2012, the Maldives Cabinet cancelled a deal signed with GMR in 2010 for upgrading and operating the country’s biggest airport.
- The $511-million deal was the country’s biggest foreign investment project at the time and was declared void ab initio (having no legal effect from inception) with GMR given a seven-day ultimatum to leave the country.
