Brazil’s would-be mega-airport grounded after crisis

The impasse involving the future of Viracopos International Airport, which has dragged on for over two years, is finally close to a resolution.

Brazil’s sixth-largest airport in terms of passengers and second-largest in terms of cargo—it receives 40 percent of all Brazil’s imports via air—Viracopos Airport, located in the city of Campinas, is going through a severe crisis.

Administered by a consortium made up of private firms and state-owned company Infraero, in May 2017, concession holder Aeroportos Brasil filed for court-supervised reorganization to restructure its debts which—at the time—amounted to BRL 2.88 billion.

In recent months, however, Aeroportos Brasil has been involved in a dispute with the Jair Bolsonaro government, which wants the company excluded from the administration of the airport.

Privatization in the boom years

Viracopos was one of the first Brazilian airports to be handed over to the private sector when it was auctioned off in 2012 during the Dilma Rousseff government. It was acquired by a consortium made up of companies Triunfo and UTC, which offered the government BRL 3.8 billion for a 30-year concession—a premium of 159 percent on the stipulated minimum price. The companies also pledged to make investments in the order of BRL 10 billion.

The consortium’s optimism was based on the expectations of the government at the time,...