LEADERSHIP
Light at the end of the tunnel ACI Latin America-Caribbean’s director general, Rafael Echevarne, reflects on the impact COVID-19 has had on the region’s airports and the start of the recovery from the global pandemic. How difficult have the last 18 months been for airports in ACI’s Latin America-Caribbean region and have any countries been more impacted by the pandemic than others? As in most other parts of the world, the pandemic has had a huge toll on the aviation industry in Latin America and the Caribbean. Aviation in this part of the world is not a luxury, but a necessity, as there are often no realistic alternative transportation modes for domestic or international travel. There are, for example, hardly any railways and very few highways due to the huge landmass and very difficult geography and the very nature of the Caribbean islands. There have been huge differences between countries. Throughout the pandemic, for example, Mexico has been the only country worldwide where the government never imposed any restrictions on inbound or outbound foreign travel or requirements in terms of COVID tests or quarantines. In contrast, Chile and Argentine have some of the most restrictive regulations, with both countries practically being closed to the rest of the world for over a year now. We are beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel in these countries, but there are still travel restrictions, particularly in Chile, which has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.
Is it possible to say what COVID has cost the region’s airports in terms of job losses, lost revenue and passenger numbers? In 2020, the aviation industry in Latin America and the Caribbean had a traffic reduction of 61% with respect to what was estimated for that year, with approximately 435 million fewer passengers. In terms of revenue, we saw a reduction of approximately $7 billion in 2020. In 2021 we expect a 47% reduction on the pre-pandemic estimates for both passenger and revenue. This will effectively mean that both passenger numbers and revenues are around 57% down on 2019, which it must be remembered was a record breaking year for the industry.
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AIRPORT WORLD/ISSUE 5, 2021
Could the region’s governments have done more to offer financial assistance to airports? As governments in our region do not have the financial resources found in the US or Europe, we were quite realistic about the possibility of direct financial support. However, governments could have been more supportive in facilitating concession payments and investment obligations. We welcomed the Brazilian government’s proactive approach in facilitating the postponement of concession payments, but other countries were not so helpful and could have done more.
How has ACI-LAC helped the region’s airports during this time? We have been supporting our members by maintaining an active dialogue with governments and international agencies, like ICAO. The launch of the Airport Health Accreditation programme was key in demonstrating to governments that airports were proactively managing the situation. In fact, LAC´s airports were the first in the world to implement ACI’s Airport Health Accreditation (AHA), which looks at the level of compliance with the protocols recommended by ICAO, WHO, the US CDC and Europe´s ECDC. In terms of training and staying in touch with our members, we fully embraced video conferencing and we organised a total of 27 webinars during the pandemic, all of which were very well attended.
