Runways, terminals and boarding bridges are the visible side of an airport concession. The less visible part can shape the infrastructure for decades: the contract that decides who invests, who carries the risk when traffic falls, when additional capacity must be delivered and what level of performance the operator must maintain.
That question is becoming particularly relevant in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2024, 56% of airports across 17 countries, accounting for 81% of passenger traffic, involved private-sector participation. According to Airports Council International, that represents the highest level of private participation in airport activity of any world region.
A region with decades of concessions behind it
Airport concessions are hardly new to Latin America. Governments across the region have used public-private partnerships and long-term concessions since the 1990s to attract capital, expand infrastructure and transfer varying degrees of operational and financial responsibility to private operators.
What is changing is the focus of the discussion.
The Latin American Civil Aviation Commission, or CLAC, has been compiling experiences from different concession systems since 2023. The work has progressively moved towards identifying best practices and model clauses for future airport concession agreements. In April 2026, a paper presented by Costa Rica proposed using the accumulated regional experience, together with an ACI study on airport concessions, to develop an orientation guide for member States.
The subject remains active. At CLAC’s GEPEJTA/62 meeting in Lima on August 3 and 4, 2026, airport concession experience and proposed model clauses again formed part of the airport management agenda.
The initiative therefore comes after years of experience with private airport management rather than before it. The question is no longer simply whether private capital should participate in an airport. It is increasingly about how the relationship between the public authority and the private operator should work over the life of the concession.
Where the risk sits matters
Traffic provides one of the clearest examples.
Airport concessions are often structured around forecasts stretching many years into the future. If those forecasts prove too optimistic, an operator can face revenues well below the assumptions on which investment commitments and financing were based.
ACI’s concession guidelines recommend independent traffic forecasts and sensitivity analysis, including downside and stress scenarios. They also call for mechanisms that can revisit tariff or capital-investment triggers when actual traffic diverges significantly from forecasts.
That is not simply a financial issue. Passenger volumes can determine when terminals need expanding, when aircraft stands become necessary and whether planned investments still correspond to operational demand.
The same logic applies to CAPEX.
A contract that fixes every investment requirement decades in advance risks becoming disconnected from changes in traffic, technology or airline operations. ACI recommends distinguishing mandatory initial investment from later phases that can be activated according to demand and operational requirements.
The contract therefore has to achieve something difficult: give governments enough certainty that infrastructure will be delivered while preserving enough flexibility for an airport to respond to conditions that may look very different 15 or 25 years after the agreement is signed.
COVID changed the meaning of force majeure
The pandemic exposed another weakness in long-term infrastructure contracts.
ACI notes that COVID-19 revealed gaps and uncertainty in the wording of force majeure provisions. Its recommendations call for clearer definitions, better coordination with insurance and reserve mechanisms, and predictable economic rebalancing provisions when external crises or major government actions materially alter the economics of a concession.
That experience matters particularly in aviation.
An airport operator can control staffing, commercial development and many aspects of capital planning. It cannot control a pandemic, the closure of international borders or every regulatory decision affecting demand.
The wording of the concession determines how that risk is distributed when such events occur.
That makes clauses on compensation, economic rebalancing and concession duration much more than legal fine print. They can determine whether a major infrastructure partnership remains financially workable after an unexpected shock.
The contract also defines what passengers receive
Investment commitments are only one part of airport performance.
A concession may deliver a new terminal or additional stands and still underperform operationally if the agreement does not clearly define the outcomes expected from the operator.
ACI therefore recommends actionable key performance indicators, linked to concession obligations and factors affecting passengers and airlines. It also warns against allowing KPIs to become static reporting requirements with little operational value, recommending that their usefulness be periodically reassessed.
This moves the concession discussion beyond the traditional question of how much an operator promises to invest.
The agreement can also influence service quality, airport capacity, operational efficiency and the timing of improvements. In that sense, what happens inside the terminal years after a concession is signed can still trace back to decisions written into the original contract.
A common reference, not a common contract
CLAC’s initiative does not mean that Latin America is preparing a single airport concession agreement for every country.
That distinction matters.
During earlier discussions, Peru stressed that States have different institutional and legal structures and that concession models should not be locked into rigid frameworks. The purpose of the regional work is therefore better understood as creating guidance and model provisions that governments can adapt to their own circumstances.
The April 2026 CLAC paper explicitly proposes an orientation guide covering model clauses and best practices, using both regional experience and the ACI study as inputs.
ACI itself makes a similar point. Its global guidelines argue that every concession remains specific to its market and legal context, while principles such as transparency, balanced risk allocation and long-term partnership can be applied much more broadly.
That may ultimately be the value of the CLAC process.
Latin America does not lack airport concession experience. It has decades of it. What the region is now trying to do is convert that experience into better decisions before the next contracts are signed.
For an airport user, the concession agreement may remain invisible. For governments, investors, airlines and operators, however, it can determine how risk, investment and performance are distributed for decades. In a region where four out of five passengers already travel through airports involving private-sector participation, improving the contract behind the infrastructure may matter almost as much as building the infrastructure itself.
Sources: CLAC — GEPEJTA/61, Intercambio de experiencias de concesiones aeroportuarias y propuesta de cláusulas modelo / CLAC — GEPEJTA/62, Lima, 3–4 August 2026 / ACI-LAC — Airport Development Concession Agreements: Global Approaches and Guidelines for PPPs
