Brazilian airport administrators fear collapse

The aviation industry has been one of the worst-hit sectors by the Covid-19 pandemic. Most flights are still grounded, even though airlines have already begun resuming some of their activities. The outlook is bleak: three major Latin American carriers recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Airlines have cut over 2,000 jobs and more layoffs are on their way. Companies will not only require massive government stimulus, they also need antitrust watchdogs to authorize mergers that would be otherwise unthinkable in an already heavily-concentrated market. But while the focus so far has been on the carriers’ woes, other key players in the sector are set to be badly hit by the coronavirus crisis, such as airport administrators.

We are not yet able to fully measure the extent of the crisis, but that the situation will remain grim for some time is a near certainty. “With Brazilian borders closed to foreigners, it is hard to predict when we will have regular international flights again,” says Rogério Coimbra, corporate director at Inframérica — a multinational which runs airports in Brasília and Natal. “To make matters worse, many countries have not opened to Brazilians,” he tells The Brazilian Report.

Both the U.S. and the European Union have kept Brazil a long way away from the list of nationalities allowed into their respective borders. Those restrictions are set to stay put for the foreseeable future, considering that the coronavirus remains out of control in Brazil — and that Latin America is now the epicenter of the pandemic.

Two weeks ago, the...