ACI LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN VIEWPOINT
Growth trajectory T
ACI Latin America & Caribbean president, Miguel Southwell, refl ects on the challenges and opportunities facing the region’s gateways.
he greatest challenge facing government-operated airports in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is their inability to fund capital improvements and new security mandates.
Additionally, with a wide range of diversity in culture, language and
governance, the region is not homogenous, at times making it challenging to build a consensus. Another challenge is that the economies of Central America and the
Caribbean are largely dependent upon tourism, a seasonal industry that is also highly susceptible to annual hurricanes. So what about the opportunities? Well, there are many out there, most as
a result of rapid traffi c growth across the region that has left governments looking for private investors to help build new infrastructure. The LAC region has experienced robust growth over the last decade.
According to aviation consultants SH&E, combined LAC passenger and cargo traffi c (TKP) is forecast to grow 15.2% and 6.1% in 2010 and 2011 respectively; third only to the Middle East and Asia Pacifi c in each of those years. This growth has demanded the modernisation of aging airport infrastructures. Faced with a dearth of public funds and severely restricted access to
capital markets, a wave of airport privatisation has swept across Latin America, and is now gaining momentum in the Caribbean. In South America, Brazil remains the conspicuous privatisation-holdout
among a handful of major airports still operated by governments. The country boasts the world’s eighth largest economy by GDP – the second largest in the western hemisphere. According to SH&E, Brazil is the leader in Latin America for both current
active aircraft fl eet size (31%) and order backlog (44%). Infraero, a Brazilian government corporation, operates the nation’s 67 airports. In October 2009, it was announced that Infraero planned to invest in
airports outside of Brazil and on March 4, 2010, the Federal Government of Brazil announced that Infraero would become a concessionaire rather than an administrator of the airports that it operated.
Under this new federal model, municipals in Brazil have a choice of their
airport’s oversight. An interesting dichotomy, in August 2009 the mayor of Campos dos Goytacazes requested that Infraero transfer the administration of the Bartolomeu Lysandro Airport to the city. Brazil’s minister of defence, to whom Infraero reports, announced his support of the transfer, further dampening any prospects of privatisation in that nation. In Central America, Panama is one of the region’s benchmarks for
the successful modernisation of airports by a government-controlled entity. After nearly three years of an aggressive capital improvement programme, the $85 million modernisation of Tocumen International Airport is now complete. Among the largest of the Caribbean nations, the governments of Trinidad
and Barbados completed their development of modern facilities in 2001 and 2005 respectively.
AIRPORT WORLD/OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2010 23
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