Outlook for airport privatisation & financing: Part 1. CAPA database tracks 475 airport investors

Despite the fact that there are now 450 airports worldwide that have some form of private-sector participation in their management or ownership, it is not for the first time that airport privatisation went through a lean period in 2012 and the first half of 2013. Governments traditionally turn to the private sector for help when the cost of funding new infrastructure or even of maintaining existing infrastructure exceeds their resources. But investors have grown increasingly sophisticated and no longer perceive airports to be the cash cows they were considered to be as recently as five years ago. Which is a good thing: for often, they are not.

Equally, governments have also learned to approach privatisation deals with greater caution, to try to ensure adequate investment in capacity and in ongoing maintenance, and to make provision for early termination of deals that do not work out as expected.