CAPA · 01:30
Throughout most of the world the privatisation of airports, often by lease, is by now long established. That isn't the case in the USA, where it has been tried since 1996 up until 2019, when the last major attempt floundered - as so many others have done before. In Canada everyone thought the perfect system, one that dates back to the 1990s, had already been introduced - mainly public sector ownership of the main airports by not-for-profit stakeholder organisations, which precluded private investment. But those airports simply aren't making enough money for the government, even though it charges them hefty annual ground rents, as it still owns the land in most cases. Now, at the fourth attempt, the government, which had already opened the door in 2025 to investment by the country's pension funds in its own airports - which they previously were not allowed to do - will try to set up a sovereign wealth fund that will be partly funded by capital sales at the airports, thus permitting enti