Corp. América Airports plans to invest US $ 300 million in betting on Uruguay

The airport operator Corporación América Airports is promoting its commitment to Uruguay after obtaining a 20-year extension in a key international airport, while also reinforcing its presence in the South American country by adding some smaller airports.

Your Uruguayan subsidiary, Puerta del Sur SA, extended until the year 2053 the concession of the airport that supplies the capital, Montevideo, and added six national airports to the agreement. The company plans to invest to upgrade the infrastructure of local airports – which until now had been losing money – to global standards, he said. Martin Eurnekian, CEO of America Airports Corporation.

“The COVID crisis was very hard for our industry“Eurnekian said in a telephone interview. “As a company, we not only managed to adjust and adapt during this time, but also to take proactive proposals to the governments to continue in infrastructure. It’s a win-win”.

The measure comes almost a year after the company negotiated a 10-year extension of the concession it has at airports in Argentina through its unit Airports Argentina 2000 SA. Despite being hit hard by airport closures around the world due to the pandemic, the parent company’s shares have recovered from their February 2020 levels, when the pandemic swept through the region.

As part of the boost to infrastructure in Uruguay, the company plans to allocate US $ 300 million to projects during the 30 years of the concession, starting with an investment of US $ 67 million, two-thirds of which must be invested before December 2023.

The investment will be financed for the most part thanks to a tender for ACI Airport Sudamerica SA, the parent company of South Gate, in which it raised US $ 53 million in new funds, in addition to extending the maturities of its bonds.

The company will seek to develop traffic at local airports and sees the greatest short-term business opportunities at the two airports furthest from the capital, Rivera and Salto, said the CEO of South Gate, Diego Arrosa. It is in talks with airlines to increase connectivity, especially at northern airports. It is also studying policies to allow its airports to operate hybrid electric planes, which are more efficient and less expensive.

The vast majority of Uruguay’s air travel passes through international airports that serve Montevideo and the Atlantic resort of Punta del Este. Passenger traffic through both airports amounted to 2.14 million people in 2019, according to local data.

The company also has the Punta del Este airport concession through a separate agreement and does not yet have updates on changes to that concession, Eurnekian said. He declined to comment on extensions of the concessions elsewhere.