St. Louis will evaluate the qualifications of 18 potential bidders as it weighs whether to privatize St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
The city’s airport working group received the responses to a request for qualifications
“It is our goal to review the RFQ responses and to provide the public with more details about the respondents” in the coming days, working group chairman and city budget director Paul Payne said in a statement.
Working group member Mayor Lyda Krewson said in a KMOX radio interview the group would review the potential bidders’ experience, capital capacity, and plans for the airport. “Are these operators proposing new terminals? Are they proposing to take care of almost $1 billion in deferred maintenance at the airport? Of course, anyone who has a proposal will have to pay off the airport debt, which is over $600 million,” Krewson said in the interview.
The responses included those from AENA Internacional; AMP Capital; Atlantia; Corporación América Airports (CAAP); daa International; Global Infrastructure Partners; GRID Realty; IFM Investors and MAG Overseas Investments Limited, on behalf of Manchester Airports Group; and Lambert Gateway Partners, a consortium including Blackstone Infrastructure Partners, Groupe ADP, the Hall of Fame Group, The Bridgeman Hospitality Group, Cleveland Avenue and the Public School and Education Employee Retirement Systems of Missouri.
The rest of the list is: Momentum Aviation Partners, a consortium including Partners Group (USA), ASUR and AECOM Hunt; Morrison & Co.; Odinsa (Grupo Argos); OMERS Infrastructure and Fraport 2; Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, Ontario Airports Investments Limited and Copenhagen Airports International; Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSPIB) and AviAlliance; Royal Schiphol Group; STL Aviation Group, a consortium including Oaktree Transportation Investment Fund, JLC Infrastructure / MJE-Loop Capital Partners, Ullico and Vinci Airports / TBI Airport Management; and the combined Vantage Airport Group and Corsair-Vantage Investment Partners.
The city is seeking “to structure a transaction that meets the city’s primary objectives: improvement of the airport for all stakeholders, including incremental uses of the airport’s significant excess capacity. Net cash proceeds to the city, upfront and/or over time for non-airport purposes,” according to the RFQ.
Layers of approval will be needed from the city’s aldermen and Lambert airlines to federal agencies. Supporters say it will help upgrade the airport while also freeing up funds for citywide investments. Critics, including the city's independently elected comptroller, Darlene Green, believe the airport can finance its own improvements, should remain in local or regional hands, and want a public vote because they believe the city’s review process is flawed and favors private interests.
Former Mayor Francis Slay pitched the idea in March 2017. The FAA accepted the city’s preliminary application in April 2017 and the city then moved to hire advisors. The special working group formally began meeting in July 2018. The airlines have also given their preliminary approval.
The FAA launched the program to permit privatization of facilities built with public funds in 1996, originally with a five-airport cap that was later raised to 10. The 2018 Reauthorization Act removed the limitation on the number of airports, effectively ending the pilot program, and renamed it the Airport Investment Partnership Program. Only two airports are in the program now.
A timeline
After qualifications are reviewed, a request for proposals would be issued to qualified bidders. The city would then finalize all terms and conditions of the potential deal and a final bidding process would take place.
The
The only commercial passenger facility in the AIPP program today is the Luís Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Aerostar Airport Holdings operates the island's primary airport under a 40-year agreement with the Puerto Rico Ports Authority under a deal the FAA approved in 2013.
