Next stage of Brazilian regional airports concession will be single auction per airport, not blocks

The Brazilian airport concession programme, the most reported of any by CAPA - Centre for Aviation, over 14 years, has progressed sometimes rapidly and sometimes staggered its way through seven tranches.

It seemed to have come to a natural conclusion with the São Paulo Congonhas deal, leaving only the two Rio de Janeiro airports to be sorted out - a first time concession and a reconcession that the new government decided should be in tandem.

But the government and the regulator, Anac, have got the bit between their teeth and earlier this year they introduced a programme, AmpliAR, which aimed to attract over USD800 million in private sector funding to rehabilitate what has since risen from 50 to over 100 small regional airports - some little more than grass strips in the jungle - and rapidly. The programme is about to commence, and should complete within a year.

The big question is: what sort of incentives are going to be offered to established investors, including foreign ones (most of the world's leading investors in the sector are already in Brazil) to make this offer attractive, which is a primary objective of the government?

And that challenge became more difficult recently, when it was revealed that instead of the habitual 'block' system, each airport will be tendered individually.