There has been some indecision about the future of the Brazilian airports concession process since the seventh tranche was completed.
A change of government initially saw a shift back towards the retention, by way of the state operator Infraero, of the domestic Santos Dumont Airport in Rio de Janeiro, while the re-concession of the international Galeão Airport there was put on the back burner while it was ‘reinvigorated’, which meant redirecting domestic capacity from Santos Dumont to Galeão.
That process was completed in 2024; Galeão is flying high, and a deal for Galeão now looks to be on the cards for 1Q2025, which is pretty quick by Brazilian standards.
In what is one of the more unorthodox countries when it comes to these things, it seems that the existing concessionaire, RIOgaleão (effectively now just Changi Airports International, which has been trying to offload Galeão since 2017), may now even re-bid for it. While the state operator Infraero, which has acted as an ‘uncle’ to the privatisation process since it began back in 2011, and holds on to 49% of the equity at most of the privatised airports (including this one), could be booted out.
There is never a dull moment in this saga, dubbed a ‘Soap Opera’ in Brazil; it is 14 years old this year, and there is plenty of minor detail to get to grips with.
Read on…