Peru’s Chinchero Airport: another start date, but more lies ahead...

Just like Berlin's new airport (which has at least opened, almost a decade late), the one proposed at Chinchero Cusco in Peru has long been delayed.

The circumstances were similar. Originally the arrangement was a public-private partnership, but over the course of a couple of years the private sector consortium's position became untenable, and the deal was annulled.

For a short time a project which has attracted scorn from the local media became a wholly state one, but it was not long before the private sector was again attracted, in the form of a Korean consortium, this time just to build it.

Now, the process having taken another unwanted year's break on account of the pandemic, along comes an equally undesirable 'sustainability assessment'; one which should have been done years ago, bearing in mind that the central attraction here is a globally famous World Heritage Site.

Regrettably, there are examples of where such late intervention has proved fatal to an airport's prospects.