French-Italian group win Santiago airport concession

The Chilean Ministry of Public Works (MOP) on Feb. 4 awarded French-Italian consortium Grupo Nuevo Pudahuel as the preferred bidder in the tendering of the Santiago Arturo Merino Benitez international airport concession.

The winning consortium— comprised of Aéroports de Paris (45% of the consortium),VINCI Airports (40%) and Italian construction firm Astaldi (15%) – made a financial offer of 77.56%, with revenue being shared with the government.

The 20-year concession includes the building of a new 175,000 sm terminal which will increase the airport’s capacity to 30 million passengers, with potential for expansion beyond 45 million; the renovation of existing installations with the redesign and extension of the current terminal; and daily operations and commercial development for 20 years, commencing on Oct. 1, 2015.

Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport in Santiago de Chile is South America’s 6th-largest airport. It handled 16.1 million passengers in 2014, almost half of whom were international.
Augustin de Romanet, Chairman and CEO of Aéroports de Paris, noted that Santiago airport ranks among Latin America’s “most dynamic regional hubs, with average annual growth in passenger traffic of +10% over the past 20 years.This airport offers strong potential for growth and the creation of new routes that will enable it to become one of the main entry points to Latin America from Europe, the United States and soon, from Asia,” he said in an official statement.