Hyderabad International Airport (HIAL) has issued its new retail proposal for the new $320m privately-owned facility that is being constructed on the outskirts of the city. When completed in 2007 it will take over all

domestic and international operations from the existing airport operated by the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
Hyderabad?s approach to its retail offer is said to be highly professional and transparent and HIAL management is already in active talks with a number of potential retailers. Along with a new privately owned airport being built at Bangalore, the bigger facility at Hyderabad is regarded as one of the biggest duty free opportunities in India, considering the standard of the facilities will rival those of any European airport.
The HIAL development is being led by a private Indian sector company known as the GMR Group. GMR is a major group with interests in infrastructure and manufacturing. Other consortium members are COWI (a Danish engineering group), Aviaplan (Norwegian architects) and Indian company Stup (architects, engineers and project managers).
The shareholdings in the HIAL project are GMR Group (63%); MAHB Malaysian Airports (11%); Govt of Andhra Pradesh (13%); and Govt of India through the Airports Authority of India (13%).
The new airport will have an ultimate two terminal capacity of 40m passengers per annum and is being designed by Aviaplan, the same company that designed Oslo Gardermoen airport.
The first phase of development (2004 to 2007) will see construction of the first terminal and will provide capacity for 5m passengers, with subsequent phases adding capacity to 20million. A second terminal will be built by 2035.
The new terminal will be a major departure – in terms of architecture, space and finish – from other Indian airports and will be ?state of the art? to rival the best in Europe.
On opening the new airport is expected to handle almost 4m passengers and the number of commercial outlets will be increased substantially from those which exist at Hyderabad airport today.
The landside area will include an ?Airport Village?. This will be located on the ground floor prior to departures and will be seen by all passengers. It will create an ?Indian sense of place? and feature ethnic architecture, plus traditional shopping and eating offers.
The airside area – split by domestic and international – will, for the first time in an Indian airport, have major duty and tax free facilities post-security and all operated by a leading duty and tax free retailer.The retail mix airside will cater to both domestic and international travellers, but the consortia is determined that the new airport will have a ?sense of place? and a design which will communicate to all passengers that they are in Hyderabad.