VINCI Airports took possession on Wednesday 12, of Manaus International Airport, located in the state of Amazonas, the third largest cargo airport in Brazil.
In April 2021, the company was awarded the northern block of airports during the concession round, which also includes the airports of Porto Velho, Rio Branco, Cruzeiro do Sul, Tabatinga, Tefé, and Boa Vista, all of which have a lower level of operations and whose control it will take over in February.
Manaus is now the second Brazilian airport to become part of the VINCI Airports network after Salvador de Bahia in 2018.
“VINCI Airports is proud to be the new operator of Manaus airport and six other new airports in the northern block. For this region of Brazil, largely shaped by forests and rivers, air transport is essential for the mobility of people and the supply chain. We will leverage our operational and environmental expertise with a view to sustainable development. We are renewing our partnership with Brazil to make this concession a new success, building on the very positive results we have achieved in Salvador de Bahia,” commented Nicolas Notebaert, CEO of VINCI Concessions and President of VINCI Airports.
According to our Brazilian media partner Aeroin, the company won the concession after bidding an initial payment of BRL 420 million (~USD 76 million) and around BRL 5 billion (~USD 900 million) over the 30-year term of the contract.
It also committed to investments of BRL 1.48 billion (~USD 267 million), mostly earmarked for Manaus, which came to handle 2.9 million passengers and 145 thousand tons of cargo in 2019, prior to the pandemic.
In Latin America and the Caribbean VINCI Airports is also in charge of the operation of the airports of Santiago de Chile, Guanacaste (Costa Rica) and those of Santo Domingo, Puerto Plata, Samaná, La Isabela, Arroyo Barril and Barahona in the Dominican Republic. In the United States, it operates the airports of Hollywood Burbank, Middle Georgia, Atlantic City International, and Macon Downtown.
