Date:16/05/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/05/16/stories/2006051605050900.htm

Back Delhi Centaur future hangs fire

Ashwini Phadnis

Hotel could obstruct proposed taxi track

New Delhi , May 15

With the proposed modernisation of Delhi airport moving at a fast pace, a question mark hangs over the future of the Centaur hotel at the airport.

Official sources told Business Line that the promoters of the new airport had written to Air India pointing out that the existing hotel could come in the way of the proposed taxi track that is to come up as part of the future expansion of the airport.

In view of this development, AI has sought more details including the timeframe during which the proposed taxi track would come up and has put on hold its plans of giving out the property on a long-term management contract.

Centaur Hotel is run by Hotel Corporation of India, which is a 100 per cent subsidiary of AI.

The airline management was looking at giving out the hotel on lease for at least 30 years.

"If the hotel falls in front of the proposed taxi track, then it may have to relocated to another site. If that were to happen, what sense does it make for us to enter the market now and look for a party who would like to take the hotel on a long-term management basis?" senior AI officials asked.

A consortium led by the GMR group - which includes Fraport, the operators of the Frankfurt airport, and Airports Authority of India (AAI) - was shortlisted by the Government to undertake modernisation work at the Delhi airport.

Meanwhile, the Centaur hotel continues to do brisk business.

"The hotel has been reporting a high occupancy rate and is now a self-sustaining unit," a senior AI official said.

In the recent past the hotel has taken a number of steps to cut down costs and attract more business, including renovating rooms and implementing a voluntary retirement scheme that helped reduced manpower costs by more than 30 per cent.