Three Key Charts: Asia Airports Face Near-Term Risks But Long-Term Opportunities

Key View:

• Asia hosts over USD220bn worth of airport infrastructure projects, according to our Infrastructure Key Projects Database, with South Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam leading the region.
• There are medium- to long-term opportunities in the entire region, as majority of airport projects are currently at the pre-construction phase, although we highlight near-term uncertainties amid the Covid-19 pandemic and the possibility of re-assessing business cases for some airport infrastructure developments due to disruptions in air travel.
• We see highly varied risk profiles across the region, with markets across both ends of the spectrum in our Project Risk Metric.

Asia hosts over USD220bn worth of airport infrastructure projects, according to our Infrastructure Key Projects Database (KPD), accounting for over 46% of the global airport infrastructure project pipeline in terms of value. Our KPD, which includes projects over USD30mn in value, features 221 airport infrastructure projects across Asian markets. The region’s overall project pipeline is more than double that of its nearest rival, the Americas, in terms of value. South Korea accounts for the largest share in Asia, with USD46.1bn worth of airport infrastructure projects, ahead of the Philippines at USD33.9bn and Vietnam at USD23.3bn. Together, these three markets account for close to 47% of Asia’s entire airport infrastructure project pipeline value. We note that this is also a notable shift from the top three largest markets from what our data captured just over a year ago – which were Philippines, South Korea and China respectively. South Korea also hosts Asia’s highest-value airport infrastructure project in the region: the USD24.9bn Gadeok Island Airport Project in Busan. The National Assembly of South Korea approved the bill for the construction of a new airport in early 2021. The project remains in planning stages at present, and will undergo preliminary feasibility study by the Aviation University Association (consortium) over next 10 months to prepare the basic concept for the project.