Brasília – Santos Dumont Airport, near downtown Rio de Janeiro, will be auctioned along with Galeão International Airport in the second half of 2023, announced Thursday (10) Infrastructure Minister Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas. He confirmed Santos Dumont’s withdrawal from the 7th Round of Airport Auctions to take place this year.
With the decision, the 7th Round was left with 15 airports to be sold in 3 lots: São Paulo-Mato Grosso do Sul-Pará (lot that includes the Congonhas Airport, in São Paulo’s capital and 8 other airports); Rio de Janeiro-Minas Gerais (which was left only with the airports of Jacarepaguá, in Rio de Janeiro, Montes Claros, Uberlândia and Uberaba, in Minas Gerais) and North 2 (comprising the airports of the capitals Macapá and Belém).
“It no longer makes sense to work with Santos Dumont in an isolated way in Round 7. We will consider the two airports together. We are going to assess the joint concession of Galeão and Santos Dumont,” the minister said.
The deferral of the Santos Dumont auction occurred after the announcement that Singaporean company Changi, which controls the concessionaire that manages Galeão, will give up the business. The Asian company filed a request with the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) to abandon the concession, after the agency early this month denied a request to review the contract balance due a pandemic-related decline in air traffic.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
