New Quito Airport, Ecuador

Quito is the capital of Ecuador and is currently served by the Mariscal Sucre International airport (150ha site), which is totally surrounded by urban development in the middle of the city and cannot possibly expand to accommodate the growing air traffic in Ecuador, increasing due to tourism. Ecuador will play host to over one million tourists during 2007 and tourism is increasing by 2%–3% a year.

In November 2002 Mariscal Sucre Airport was taken over by a joint venture called Corporacion Quiport SA (Quiport) (this consists of Aecon, Andrade Gutierrez Concessoes of Brazil, the Airport Development Corporation of Toronto and HAS Development Corporation of Texas).

Quiport was actually awarded the concession for the airport by the City of Quito to design, build and operate a new airport to replace the old one. It will also operate the old airport until construction has finished on the New Quito airport and it is opened, sometime in 2010.

The airport will be operated by Quiport under a concession lasting until 2040 (giving them the right to collect 80% of the revenue offshore). The current airport has traffic of 2.8 million passengers a year (the majority (2.2 million) are domestic).

FINANCE

The total cost of the new airport is $585m and this is being financed through debt raised from the project lenders. Aecon has a 45.5% economic interest in the airport concession and Andrade Gutierrez Constructores 48%.

The major lenders to the project ($413m) are Corporacion Aeropuerto y Zona Franca del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito (CORPAQ), Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Export-Import Bank of the USA and the Inter American Development Bank and Canada’s Export Development Corporation (EDC).

QUINO AIRPORT CONSTRUCTION

The existing airport is limited in quite a few areas such as the small passenger terminal, the length of the runway, car park, aircraft servicing and cargo facilities.

The new airport, which was designed by Marshall Macklin and Monaghan of Canada (Avatar Consulting was also involved in the planning) started construction in early 2006.

The airport is being constructed under a 51-month Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract between the city of Quito and the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC) – part of the Canadian Government – that has subcontracted the $415m construction contract to the 50/50 joint venture between Aecon and Andrade Gutierrez Constructores.

FACILITIES

The new airport is being built on a 1,500ha site (ten times larger than the existing airport) about 18km from the centre of town.

The terminal building will have a floor space of 38,900m² on four levels; there will be six jetways and 12 remote gates. The air traffic control tower will be 41m tall, with the building occupying a site of 901m².

The initial cargo capacity will be 250,000t a year (eventually increasing to 440,000t). The cargo and support area will have 10,000m² of storage space and 2,200m² for offices, refrigerated storage and access (bonded) areas and also a 5,000m² hangar for maintenance activity. The airport will also incorporate a 60ha free-trade business zone to encourage commerce (increasing to 220ha by 2030).

LOCATION

The positioning of the new airport on the Caraburo Plateau will increase the taxi journey to about 50 minutes to the centre of the city but will have the advantage of only being at an elevation of 2,400m above sea level instead of 2,808m at the current airport so that passengers won’t find altitude sickness such a problem.

The new airport will have a single 3,600m runway. Initially the airport on opening in 2010 will be able to accommodate 4.5 million passengers a year (76,715 operations a year) but this will increase by phased development to 5.5 million by 2020 and 7.5 million by 2030.

Quito City has made a good start at supporting the new airport with the construction of a new 4.2km road and a water pipeline to the area where the new terminal building will be situated (this infrastructure project has required the purchase of land from 24 farms).

Currently the airport construction is in the phase of building dormitories and facilities for the construction workers and earth works relating to preparing the site for the new runway and terminal building. By March 2007 the first million tonnes of stone was compacted in the fill area.

The subcontractors and equipment suppliers include: Volecam (supplying construction equipment) and Equitransa (equipment supplier). Site grading will require 7,000,000m³ of fill.