Global airport construction and investment report mid-2024 – Part 1 – Intro, Asia Pacific & Europe

It is over two years since CAPA - Centre for Aviation published its last global airport construction and investment survey; one of several such reports during the past decade. At that time, many construction activities were suspended, or had been cancelled altogether, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, although in some instances they did continue.

It might have been hoped that there would be a turnaround latterly on the basis that the pandemic, while still active, has been marked down to one of a relatively minor inconvenience in most countries, with travel restrictions absent today also in the vast majority of cases.

But the world is governed by events such as the invasion of Ukraine, and also the knock-on effect on supply lines, business and inflation well beyond that country's borders. All of these have contributed to an ongoing economic downturn.

Consequently, while the full impact of the pandemic will take years yet to play out, in the near term it has reshaped the entire infrastructure industry in four ways: intensifying its focus on operational resilience, the affordability of that infrastructure, the deployment of new technologies, and the need for sustainability.

Those are important reasons why infrastructure investment in both existing and new airports has close to halved since before the pandemic.

This is the first of a two-part report into where construction and investment in the airport sector is focused at present, including an introduction and a deeper dive into the position in Asia Pacific and Europe.

The subsequent second part will look at the Americas, Middle East and Africa.