Brazil privatizes São Paulo Congonhas Airport
This was the seventh round of auctions aimed to privatize Brazilian airports. One final round remains. On Thursday, the Brazilian government held the seventh round of airport privatizations, and São Paulo Congonhas Airport (CGH), one of the most important hubs in the country, was adjudicated. Aena, the Spanish airport operator, won the bid of Congonhas and ten additional airports and will pay €468 million to administrate these hubs for the next 30 years.
Brazil has been privatizing its airports since 2012 to speed up the modernization of the transport infrastructure (last year, it auctioned 22 regional airports). This year, the country held the seventh round of privatizations, which included Congonhas International Airport, the second most important domestic hub in Brazil (339.2 million passengers since 2000, only surpassed by Guarulhos International Airport).
The Brazilian government divided this round into three blocks. In the first block, it included Congonhas and these airports: Campo Grande, Corumba, Ponta Pora, Santarém, Marabá, Paraupebas, Altamira, Uberlândia, Uberaba, Montes Claros, and Minas Gerais. The second block included two small airports better suited for private aviation, Campo de Marte and Jacaperaguá, and the third block was composed of the Belém and Macapá airports. The first block was clearly the most commercially attractive.
Congonhas Airport is located in the State of São Paulo, an area of 248,219 km², approximately 50% the size of Spain. This State has a population of 46.3 million, similar to that of Spain or Argentina, twice that of Chile, or four times that of Portugal. In 2022, Congonhas has had 7.79 million passengers (it does not have international operations), recovering 71.86% of the domestic traffic it had in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has commercial services from LATAM Airlines Group, Azul Linhas Aéreas, GOL Linhas Aéreas, and Passaredo, according to Cirium.
Aena, the Spanish airport operator who handles 48 airports in the European country (including Madrid Barajas and Barcelona-El Prat), was the winner of the auction. This company already manages six airports in the northeast Brazilian region, meaning it will operate a network of 17 airports in Brazil and will become the manager of the country’s largest network of concessioned hubs.
Chairman and CEO of Aena, Maurici Lucena: “Despite the hard times we have gone through because of COVID-19, and always with the priority of generating value for public and private shareholders and employees, we are convinced that the internationalization of Aena is a guarantee for the future. Brazil’s potential is indisputable. Its domestic traffic, for example, is 100% recovered”.