Asur to Challenge Mexican Regulators’ Ruling on Airport Bid
Asur to Challenge Mexican Regulators’ Ruling on Airport Bid
Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (Asur) said it planned to appeal a ruling by Mexican anti-trust regulators that barred it from bidding for the new airport in the Caribbean region’s Riviera Maya.
Asur, which operates several airports in southeastern Mexico, will challenge the ruling this week, the company’s chairman and largest shareholder, Fernando Chico Pardo, said in a press conference on Tuesday.
Asur is being excluded from the bidding for the new airport to prevent the company from having monopoly control over air transport facilities in the region, the Federal Competition Commission, or CFC, said in a statement released Sunday.
The company already runs the airport in the Caribbean resort city of Cancun, the CFC said. Asur has “sufficient” arguments to get the decision reversed and get authorization to participate in the bidding for the Riviera Maya airport, Chico Pardo said. The CFC “will have a period of up to 60 days to issue a response to the request” once it receives the appeal, Chico Pardo said.
The government has postponed auctions on more than two occasions for the right to build and operate the Riviera Maya’s new international airport, which will be located in Tulum, a city in Quintana Roo state, due to poor conditions.
“Allowing the entry of Asur into the bidding would have put at risk this opportunity and harmed consumers and tourism in the country’s most important tourist zone,” CFC chairman Eduardo Perez Motta said.
Granting Asur a new license would have “ended the opportunity for competition between operators,” Perez Motta said. The airport, which is expected to cost nearly $250 million, will handle an estimated 3 million passengers by its third year of operation.
Asur, whose investors include mining company Grupo Mexico, operates nine airports in southeast Mexico. Grupo Mexico, which owns a 15.4 percent stake in Asur, is among the investors that have expressed interest in the Riviera Maya project.
