COMMERCIALIZING MONTERREY'S PRIVATE AIRPORT: A

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MONTERREY 000122 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EB/TRA/AVP E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAIR ECON EINT BTIO MX SUBJECT: COMMERCIALIZING MONTERREY'S PRIVATE AIRPORT: A HIGHLY-POLITICIZED VENTURE REF: MONTERREY 076 MONTERREY 00000122 001.2 OF 003 ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY. With an influx of new airlines, Monterrey's International Airport has built new passenger and cargo terminals in a bid to become a regional and international aviation hub. However, this expansion may be limited by Monterrey's high aviation fees and limited number of runways. Moreover, the Monterrey International Airport faces potential competition from Monterrey's private Aeropuerto del Norte. This small, private airport is owned and managed by a member-owned cooperative that for over thirty years has utilized the airport for the benefit of Monterrey's largest and most influential companies. Although there has been a move to open the airport to commercial carrier and shipping operations, the move has apparently been blocked by an influential member of the airport. This backroom maneuvering demonstrates how deals are made in the clubby Monterrey business world, and how private interests could limit Monterrey's aviation ambitions. END SUMMARY. -------------- -------------- MONTERREY'S AIRPORT SEEKS TO EXPAND -------------- -------------- ¶2. (U) Aeropuerto Internacional de Monterrey (AIM),formally known as General Mariano Escobedo International Airport, is touted as one of the most modern in North America, but is also one of the most expensive. Built in the early 1970s, it came under the control of Grupo Aerportuario Centro Norte S.A. (OMA) in 1998 after the Mexican airport system was deregulated and opened up to private investment. OMA operates and manages thirteen international airports in northern and central Mexico, the largest of which is Monterrey. According to the airlines, OMA made a very expensive bid to control the Monterrey International Airport, far higher than its competitors, and OMA has sought to recoup its investment through expensive landing fees and other aviation services. ¶3. (U) According to OMA Airport Administrator Raul Zabre, AIM serviced over 5.5 million passengers flew in 2006, the highest number on record, but still far lower than the airport's 7.5 million passenger capacity. Eighty percent of Monterrey's flights are for domestic travel, while the other 20% are headed for U.S. destinations. Overall, domestic traffic was up 18% in 
2006, but December saw a 31% increase in domestic passengers over December 2005. This growth reflects nine new domestic routes offered by the new Monterrey-based low-cost airline, VivaAerobus, which began operating on November 30, 2006 (reftel),as well as several other new carriers, and may well reflect a trend of substantially increasing domestic travel due to increased aviation competition. ¶4. (SBU) According to Zabre, OMA is trying to further develop the airport's capacity to handle the inevitable increase in demand as Monterrey becomes an international hub for Mexico. The airport is scheduled to open a new passenger terminal in 2008, which will increase AIM's capacity by 2 million. Similarly, OMA built a new 60,000 square meter cargo facility in ¶2004. However, less than half of that space is currently being utilized, according to UPS Monterrey's General Manager, in part due to high aviation costs. To date, only FedEx and UPS have leased any part of the cargo terminal. OMA is negotiating with AeroMexico to move the airline's maintenance facility from Guadalajara to Monterrey, and if the deal goes through, AeroMexico maintenance will utilize a majority of the new cargo facility. However, AIM's plans appear constrained by a lack of runways. AIM only has two runways and, according to airline directors, they are close to capacity. They believe that AIM needs to build at least one more runway to become an international passenger and cargo hub. OMA disagrees on the need for more runways, and Airport Administrator Zabre stated that OMA does not currently plan to build any. -------------- -------------- ANOTHER COMMERCIAL AIRPORT? -------------- -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Just thirty miles from AIM lies Aeropuerto del Norte (ADN),a private facility that originally served as Monterrey's commercial airport until the early 1970s. Since then, ADN has been owned by a cooperative ("cooperativa") of private individuals, most of whom represent Monterrey's largest and most influential companies. The co-op is democratically controlled and returns any margins or profits to members on the basis of patronage. EconOff met with Gabriel Cavazos, a former official from the Nuevo Leon state Secretariat for Economic Development (SEDEC),who worked closely with the ADN co-op in 2006. As MONTERREY 00000122 002.2 OF 003 Cavazos explained, co-ops in Mexico are plentiful, but most are formed with a social agenda in mind. According to him, this co-op was established in order to avoid the high taxes normally levied on both private and commercial airports. "It has become a running joke in Monterrey," lamented Cavazos, "Its nickname is the 'cooperativa for golfers'". ¶6. (SBU) While almost every airport in Mexico has been granted a concession by the Mexican civil aviation authority (DGAC) to operate legally, ADN only has a simple, highly restrictive "authorization" from the DGAC. Under a simple authorization scheme, only members of the ADN co-op can utilize the existing hangars and store their private planes at the airport. However, over the last thirty years, various co-op members have been collecting fees from third parties who rent hangar space, but haven't paid any taxes on the income. According to Cavazos, the Mexican federal government has "turned a blind eye" to the co-op's obvious tax evasion because its members are such influential businessmen. ¶7. (SBU) When new low-cost airlines began emerging in Mexico in 2005, seven members of the cooperativa, each of whom own tracts of land that surround ADN, agreed that the airport was worth a lot of money if opened up to commercial aviation. These seven members privately commissioned Lufthansa Consulting to conduct a preliminary survey on the potential for opening up Aeropuerto del Norte to commercial aviation. Lufthansa concluded that there was an enormous potential for ADN to act as Monterrey's second international airport, particularly if opened up to low-cost carriers and cargo operators. Their report also found that, with the proper investment in infrastructure, ADN could successfully compete with Laredo, Texas, for cargo traffic. NOTE. According to SEDEC statistics, more Monterrey-bound cargo goes through Laredo airport and is trucked in to Monterrey than arrives directly to AIM. The historical reason for this is the high cost associated with flying cargo planes into OMA-controlled AIM. END NOTE. ¶8. (SBU) When the seven co-op members suggested opening the airport to commercial traffic, they met with fierce resistance from the other members of the cooperative. According to one of the seven members supporting the airport, the others "were against it because they would lose their thirty year-long privileges and because they have a narrow minded mercantilist perspective." The seven co-op members then approached the Nuevo Leon state government directly and asked them to dissolve the cooperativa to make way for a new, invigorated airport. The other members of the cooperative complained to Nuevo Leon that the seven co-op members pushing the change were not simply altruistic public citizens, but would financially benefit because they owned the surrounding land that the airport would acquire. After initial resistance, the Nuevo Leon state government persuaded the cooperative members to support opening the airport to commercial traffic by guaranteeing that the members' personal access privileges would not be infringed if they agreed to give up control of the airport. According to Mexican federal law, a state or municipal government must form a corporation in which they hold the majority stake in order to obtain a DGAC concession to operate an airport. As such, the government of Nuevo Leon incorporated a new public agency in March 2006 called the Corporation for Strategic Projects (CSP). NOTE. The legal engineering for CSP was based on the City of Toluca's experience with Licenciado Adolfo Lopez Mateos International Airport outside of Mexico City. END NOTE. ¶9. (SBU) Nuevo Leon applied for an airport operator's concession with the Mexican Ministry of Communications and Transport (SCT) shortly following CSP's incorporation. To date, SCT has not rendered a decision on the application because, as Cavazos explained, Nuevo Leon Governor Natividad Gonzalez Paras "suddenly put the brakes on the whole thing" in late 2006. Several industry insiders told EconOff that, although SEDEC had engineered an agreement with the members of the Aeropuerto del Norte cooperativa, one of the co-op's most influential members backed out of the agreement in mid-2006. It is rumored that this particular member, the co-owner of Monterrey's leading newspaper El Norte, threatened the Governor with intense scrutiny and journalistic retribution should the plan go forward. It is then that Governor Gonzalez Paras, who has Presidential aspirations, withdrew his support. -------------- COMMENT & ANALYSIS -------------- MONTERREY 00000122 003.2 OF 003 ¶10. (SBU) Comment. Although Nuevo Leon has made development of the aviation industry a strategic goal, its opportunity has been undercut by other decisions. Nuevo Leon received a very high price when it contracted with OMA to run the international airport, but now OMA's high fees have discouraged aviation development in Nuevo Leon. Nuevo Leon also persuaded VivaAerobus, the latest RyanAir family venture, to make Monterrey its hub (see reftel),but although OMA is expanding the airline terminals, OMA has no plans to increase the number of runways, which may hamper further growth. Finally, although Nuevo Leon would benefit as a whole if Aeropuerto del Norte expanded commercial and cargo operations, the threat of negative newspaper publicity on the Governor may well doom the whole project. We expect the Mexican aviation industry to take off with new airlines and more competition, but Nuevo Leon's aspirations to become a regional aviation hub may be stunted if it cannot overcome parochial interests. End Comment. MORENO