Expansion of Bogota‘s international airport, El Dorado, will go ahead after Latin America’s largest financial development lenders awarded a loan to the organization spearheading the development.
The plans include an entirely new terminal, integrating both domestic and international flights, a new control tower, an additional fire station, new mechanisms to manage cargo and an expansion of areas to park planes.
The loan was awarded to the Concesionaria Operadora Aeroportuaria Internacional (OPAIN), a collection of investors and shareholders largely from the construction and infrastructural industries who, for the past 20 years, have held a concession to operate El Dorado.
The Inter-American Development Bank, the IDB, are the largest source of development financing in Latin America and the Caribbean and would have been the most likely firm to manage the loan, standing at $165 million. Plans are expected to be fully in place in late 2014.
“This operation is an example of our efforts to mobilize long-term financing for infrastructure projects that will help improve the competitiveness of the region,” said IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno, going on to say that “El Dorado not only addresses the growing demand for transport of Colombia, but is increasingly emerging as a regional air hub in South America.”
As well as expansions, the improvements are hoped to “increase El Dorado’s operational capacity and efficiency, reducing delays, fuel consumption and maintenance costs.”
El Dorado is listed as one of the 50 busiest airports in the world, relative to it’s size, seeing 13 million passengers and half a million tons of cargo pass through it’s doors in 2011.