Airport Construction mid-2025 overview - project numbers stable after previous falls

The prior CAPA - Centre for Aviation report on airport construction projects and their financing, a year ago, pointed to the number of projects and their value tumbling from previously recorded highs.

But on this occasion stability is the watchword, although results vary enormously between projects at existing airports and those that are greenfield ones. In the former category there have been substantial gains, but in the latter there have been falls, although part of the reason is that some projects have been deleted from the database as they can no longer be considered sustainable.

Asia Pacific leads the way, generally as usual, and especially where those new airports are concerned - in Vietnam, the Philippines, India and Australia, in all of which new ones will appear this year, next year, or soon thereafter.

In contrast, new airport activity in the United States has sunk as low as the attempts to privatise its facilities by lease. With the air traffic control network collapsing as well there, and Boeing's problems, it will require a lot more than the president's 'One Big Beautiful Bill' to put things right.

Two regions that are attracting specific attention are the Middle East and Africa, the former especially for the investment going into Saudi Arabia's airports, and the latter for new facilities in Ethiopia and Rwanda, neither of which are near conclusion, but which between them will enhance East Africa's profile enormously when they are.

So overall, the picture is brighter than it was 12 months ago, but as always there remain questions as to where the money is coming from for these projects, with airport revenues often still lagging 2019 figures (Rwanda just put in another USD500 million of taxpayers' money), and to how much longer the investment brigade will wait before it considers the airport arena to be attractive once more.