Latin American airline leaders are continuing to stress shortcomings on many fronts at the region's airports, their owners and regulators.
Speaking at the 2010 ALTA Leadership Form, association president Roberto Kriete said that six of the region's 15 largest airports are "highly congested" which is causing "huge problems". He points the finger at airports in Colombia, Brazil and Mexico as particularly bad examples. Brazil's air transport infrastructure was singled out as "a growing disaster", according to IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani.
Copa chief executive Pedro Heilbron says airport congestion is "already having an effect" on the region's growth prospects, which all agree are otherwise rosy. "There is no doubt airlines at Bogota cannot grow at the speed they want to," he says.
"There are many things that can be done with air control but they are not being done at a fast enough pace," says Heilbron. "It's going to take many years to get better."
Bisignani says that "to avoid a national embarrassment, Brazil needs bigger and better airports for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics". IATA has held talks on improving infrastructure with the country's authorities but no progress has been made. However, Bisignani is optimistic the "magic word" for Brazil will be football. "Football will work the miracle," he says.
Kriete describes Mexico as "shameful", and Enrique Beltranena, chief executive of Mexico's Volaris says slots held by defunct carriers are not being reallocated by the regulator. Getting access to these slots for carriers like Volaris that want to expand is hard and frustrating, he says.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
