AAG approves all technical offers

Guayaquil Airport Authority ( AAG) has today (Dec. 24) approved all three technical bids for the 15-year concession to operate Ecuador's Guayaquil airport, Juan Pablo Palomino, a strategic advisor to AAG told BNamericas. The three groups - Corporation America, a consortium of Agunsa (Chile) and Odebrecht (Brazil), and a consortium of Hidalgo & Hidalgo (Ecuador) and Aena (Spain) - now have until December 30 to submit economic proposals. Palomino told BNamericas that the three bidders have also been notified of the minimum percentage of income that AAG will accept. Palomino declined to reveal the figure but said the airport expects to receive total income of about US$25mn in 2004. After tax and other deductions this will be about US$20mn-22mn, from which the concessionaire will pay a percentage to AAG. Palomina told BNamericas that all three technical proposals included improvements compared to the offers they previously submitted. First time around the process was declared void (in November) after Corporation America was disqualified having failed to satisfy some bidding procedures. "The bids are very similar," said Palomino. "We asked them to improve the architectural design concept and they have improved this. We also asked them to improve airport proficiency aspects to process passengers more quickly and to comply with International Air Transport Association regulations," he said. The concession calls for US$70mn-90mn in investment over a 29-month period to complete expansion works that include a new passenger terminal, a cargo terminal and a control tower in a bid to regain the airports' category 1 status. AAG hopes to increase passenger traffic from its current 1.8 million/y to 5.5 million/y in 15 years, comprising 3 million international and 2.5 million domestic passengers.