ACI LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN VIEWPOINT
The many faces of the airports in the Latin America and Carribean region: Argentina’s Córdoba Airport (previous page) and Mexico’s Huatulco International Airport.
Jamaica however, has opted for privatisation; Montego Bay’s new
Sangster International Airport is sometimes cited as having the largest shopping mall in the Caribbean, while solicitation to privatise Kingston’s airport is anticipated in mid-2011. Antigua, Bermuda and St Kitts are also exploring their options for airport upgrades. Among airport developers in the LAC region are Aeropuertos Argentina 2000 (AA2000), which operates 33 airports in Argentina, and Guayaquil in Ecuador and Montevideo in Uruguay. Abertis’ airports include Santa Cruz, La Paz and Cochabamba airports (Bolivia), Montego Bay (Jamaica) and Cali (Colombia) jointly with AENA. Aerodom operates airports in the Dominican Republic. AENA manages airports in the Pacific region of Mexico, and in the Colombian cities of Barranquilla and Cartagena. Aéroports de Paris Management (ADPM) operates airports in the central and northern regions of Mexico. Opain operates Bogotá in Colombia. Vancouver Airport Services (YVRAS) has equity interests in Sangster (Jamaica) and Santiago–Arturo Merino Benitez (Chile). As a result of these and many airport investments by the private sector,
Jacobs Consultancy reported in 2008 that the LAC region attracted half of the developing world’s public-private-partnerships. From the world-class terminal with its glitzy shopping ambience that is
Ezeiza–Buenos Aires in Argentina to the deliberately and charming thatched-roof terminals at Mexico’s Huatulco International Airport, the airports of LAC reflect the wide diversity of culture, language and governance. This diversity does at times, however, make it challenging.
Nevertheless, the region has made great progress in overcoming disagreements through close collaboration between key regional aviation organisations. This approach may be credited for the generally good relationship that is
enjoyed between airports and airlines serving the LAC region. Working with ACI LAC, the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA) as well as the Miami regional office of IATA, the airports and airlines of the region are now making strides on traditionally cantankerous issues such as airline rates and charges. The rhetoric is now decidedly courteous and most times genuinely
friendly. Going forward, the federal governments of the region must start to participate in order to help resolve such complex issues as airport revenue diversion.
24 AIRPORT WORLD/OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2010 This may well be accomplished by expanding the collaboration to
incorporate key aviation and economic development organisations in the region such as the Latin American Civil Aviation Commission (LACAC) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). One thing the region’s airports all agree upon is that the world-class
training of their workforces holds the key to the future success of the region. This is indeed one of the reasons why ACI-LAC has made training its top priority over the last six years. While it is touted that airports are the economic engines of their
communities, they are, at the end of the day, a commodity; the means to an end for the traveller to get to the destination, be it for business or pleasure. With its shores bathed by the Caribbean Sea, Venezuela’s long time
tourism slogan ‘The Best Kept Secret in the Caribbean’ may indeed be a justifiable characterisation of its beautiful Margarita Island that lies off the coast of the mainland. However, with its vast oil reserves, Venezuela may hardly ruminate over a poor tourism season. This is not so for the vast majority of countries in Central America and the Caribbean where most economies largely depend upon tourism. In Latin America the tourism season generally runs December through to
May. These countries therefore struggle to develop events during the ‘shoulder months’ of June through November, to substitute for the absence of the ‘snow-bird’ tourist. As the wave of airport privatisation gains momentum in the Caribbean, it
is unclear whether private developers understand the correlation between their ability to grow airport revenue and the success of the host country to expand their tourism season. Developers may do well to extend their partnerships with governments to
fill those ‘shoulder months’ as more creative ideas are desperately needed beyond the plethora of jazz festivals and carnivals, which mostly serve to further divide, not expand the market. In conclusion, the airports of the LAC region have made significant
progress over the last decade. Both passenger and cargo traffic are robust. There is strong competition among about 11 private developers to finance the modernisation of its airports and in a region where good relationships are still highly desirable, building consensus is growing easier. The region is very well poised to continue its growth trajectory.
AW
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