All Brazil airports to move to private enterprise

After the three coming rounds of bids scheduled, all Brazilian airports will be handed over to private enterprise, and the Brazilian Airport Infrastructure Company (Infraero) will cease to exist. The entire process is expected to be concluded in four years, Ronei Glanzmann, director of the Department of Regulatory Politics with the National Civil Aviation Secretariat, said Wednesday (Jan. 30).

The tender offers in the fifth round of bids were made public late in November for 12 airports in nine states, split into three blocs. In all, these terminals receive 19.6 million passengers every year—9.5 percent of the country’s aviation market.

Rounds six and seven

Glanzmann said that, after the fifth round, slated to take place on march 15, Infraero continues to control 44 airports. The sixth round of concessions has also been announced, and project viability will be brought under scrutiny after the March auction.

“Approximately 20 airports are divided into three blocs, most of them in the cities of Goiânia, Manaus, and Curitiba. Our bid process is fairly mature; we spend around a year and a half from studying to the auction. So, in the second half-year of 2020, we’re holding the sixth round and start studying ahead of the seventh and last round, which should encompass another three blocs, with some 20 airports. This takes us to the end of Bolsonaro’s administration, with all of Infraero’s network ceded and being operated by private companies,” the director said.

Necessary investments have been estimated to total $2.37 billion for the 44 airports not ceded. For the fifth round, the government has received 500 requests for information and visits to the terminals, with 11 or 12 companies interested in the process, some of which in Europe, Asia, and the US. As it stands today, eight operators administer the ten Brazilian airports already privatized.