Brazil’s AmpliAR programme – a leap of faith is needed to amplify investor interest

As the Brazilian airport privatisation scheme, now in its 14th year, draws to a conclusion it got an unexpected shot in the arm by way of AmpliAR, an extension concocted by the Ministry of Ports and Airports to include small regional airports, up to 100 of them, in it.

Brazil has the second largest collection of airports in the world after the United States.

The first airports have been identified, in the Amazon and Northeast regions of the country where distances are big, habitations remote and transport thin both on the ground and in the air.

The objective is to attract to them the sizeable number of Brazilian companies that turned up at the end of the original concession process, to bid for the first batch of smaller airports to come on the radar.

That isn't to say that completely new bidders would be excluded today. The Ministry's objective is probably to start replacing the international firms that have been running the show at most levels via their concessions with Brazilian companies even if it is necessary for the latter to form consortiums in order to do so.

The best place to start that process is with the small regional airports.

Already some of those international firms have moved on and retendering is set to become more frequent the longer the Lula government stays in power.

But two of the first three airports to be tendered through AmpliAR offer a combined total of 60 seats a week at present. The total at the third one is anyone's guess; quite possibly zero.

Fortunately there are other ways in which those airports could attract business beyond scheduled and charter flights but it still requires a great deal of trust in the government's judgment for a local investor to jump onboard straight away.