Santiago airport expected to reach pre-pandemic passenger traffic this year

Santiago airport concessionaire Nuevo Pudahuel expects to hit pre-pandemic passenger levels and finish the first component of the expansion of domestic terminal T1 this year.

“The important thing for us now is to be able to focus on increasing traffic. We have a dedicated team that looks out for new routes and more connectivity between the airport and the world,” CEO Nicolás Claude told BNamericas.

The airport is expected to handle between 24mn and 25mn passengers this year, compared to 23.3mn in 2019.

Pre-pandemic projections involved 30mn passengers by 2024, and that demand gap has had a large impact on finances, since the concessionaire continued expansion works during the health crisis, Claude said during a press tour of the T1 construction site.

Works included a new international terminal (T2), opened in 2022, which brought the airport’s total capacity to 38mn passengers per year.

This situation led to ongoing arbitration with the State at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes after the public works ministry rejected a request to extend Nuevo Pudahuel’s contract, which the concessionaire claimed would have helped compensate pandemic-related losses. 

“This is an economic and financial issue in this concession that we’re monitoring,” Claude said.

The T1 expansion has two components and involves US$60mn for renovations of existing infrastructure and two new satellite buildings to increase capacity from 16mn to 20mn passengers per year.

The T1-A component comprises a 17,334m2 complex with eight boarding gates and will cost US$20mn, while T1-B includes increasing the domestic terminal’s surface area to 131,776m2, with 42 boarding gates instead of 22 currently.

Nuevo Pudahuel’s contract also includes a trigger, obliging the concessionaire to carry out additional expansions once passenger traffic hits a certain threshold. Claude declined to disclose the threshold, only saying the facility is years away from reaching it.