New airport operator can’t bank on existing NMIA certification - PAC Kingston contracts runway upgrade to CHEC
Published:Friday | November 1, 2019 | 12:32 AMHuntley Medley - Senior Business Writer
The Jamaican Government recently celebrated the belated certification of the now divested Norman Manley International Airport, NMIA, in Kingston as an aerodrome operation to international level.
The accomplishment comes some 80 years behind the start of such certification in Jamaica.
But the Mexican airport operators, who were granted a 25-year concession to operate the facility, and who took over management mid-October, are not popping the champagne. As it turns out, they will not inherit the NMIA certification by the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCCA) that is said to expire on October 3 next year, and will have to work towards getting their own operating stamp of approval.
PAC Kingston Airport Limited, PACKAL, the local subsidiary of Grupo Aeroportuario del PacÌfico S.A.B. de C.V. – GAP – said the certification achieved by the Government “is not transferable” to the operations of the airport under its new management.
“We have two years to certify the aerodrome as PACKAL and we intend to achieve it,” the Mexican concessionaire said via email to the Financial Gleaner, without elaborating on the steps to be taken.
Jamaican officials had celebrated the certification prior to the handover of the airport.
“We are at the doorsteps of the handing over of the NMIA to the winning bidders, PACKAL. We are even more pleased to be handing them a certified airport. We look forward to the new operators taking and keeping NMIA in a state of certification,” Audley Deidrick, president of the Airports Authority of Jamaica, AAJ, was quoting as saying at a ceremony for the October 16 handing over of the airport to PACKAL.
At the same event, Rohan Campbell, deputy director general at the JCAA, said the certification, which means that the airport meets, and in some cases, exceeds international benchmarks for safety and security, was “significant for local travellers, the country, citizens and all foreigners who travel or do business in Jamaica”.
Director General of the JCAA, Nari Williams-Singh, acknowledged questions from the Financial Gleaner seeking clarification on the matter but has not yet provided a response.
The disclosure by PACKAL suggests that, having come on the cusp of the airport’s divestment, the certification attainment by the airport is essentially only of academic interest and has no real positive implications for the airport’s operations under the private concessionaires.
GAP, an airport operator with headquarters in Guadalajara, Mexico, operates 12 airports in that country and several outside, including Montego Bay’s Sangster International, which it has been managing for the past 16 years under a 30-year concession. Sangster is certified as an aerodrome.
Compared to the rest of its network, GAP says NMIA ranks as a medium-sized facility with 1.7 million passengers in 2018. GAP has declined to share its projections for boosting passenger throughput, citing market disclosure rules. The company is listed on the Mexican and New York Stock Exchanges.
Meanwhile, the new airport managers told the Financial Gleaner that their more than US$100-million planned investment in the Kingston airport over the next five years will include improvements to the runway, taxiways and apron re-pavement, departure lounge, arrival hall, baggage claim area with an additional carousel, a new incinerator and wastewater treatment plant upgrading.
China Harbour Engineering Company, CHEF, has been hired to do what PACKAL says is its most important upgrade – the westward extension of the 2.7 kilometres runway by 300 metres and dredging work, with the main objective being to provide runway end safety areas on both sides of the runway. The project for the runway extension, and installation of approach lights, which began on October 10, is costing US$60 million and is scheduled for completion within three years.
The upgrading work is being monitored by the Airports Authority. At the October event marking the transfer of the airport’s management, Transport Minister Robert Montague was quoted as saying: “What we are divesting is the management of the airport, but we will not be giving up the monitoring and regulatory roles.”
Under the revenue-sharing concession agreement, which GAP can extend for another five years, the airport management company is responsible for operating and maintaining the airport, improving landside and airside operations, and financing and completing the agreed modernisation programme.