The Brazilian govt is considering removing limits to the foreign ownership of local airlines to attract investment to the struggling sector, Valor Economico reported Monday. President Dilma Rousseff is also contemplating opening up the capital of Infraero, the state-run company that controls most of Brazil's airports, Valor said, without citing sources. The proposed legislation would give the president power to allow foreign investors to have total ownership of a Brazilian airline. Foreign groups are only allowed to hold up to 20% in local carriers under existing rules. For years, the Brazilian govt has flirted with the idea of changing airline ownership rules, but a severe crisis in the sector exacerbated by a deep recession, is adding pressure on policymakers to remove limits. <br/>
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Fees paid by airlines, including Emirates and Flydubai, to use Dubai International are under review and could be increased, the CE of operator Dubai Airports said Monday. “We are looking at what may well result in us having to make a small increase in the aeronautical charges,” Paul Griffiths said. The review comes 4 months after Griffiths said Dubai International, owned by the Dubai govt, would not follow Bahrain, who at the time was reportedly looking at increasing airport charges because of the falling oil price. In October, Griffiths said: “There is no relativity in my mind between the price of oil and the charges we put at the airport.” Monday, he maintained his position even with oil now sitting US$35 a barrel, nearly $20 less than the high seen in October. <br/>
Dubai International remained the world's busiest for international passengers in 2015 as traffic grew 10.7%, boosted by the addition of new airlines and routes. Annual traffic rose to 78m passengers from 70.5m in 2014. In the month of December alone, traffic climbed 8.5% to 7.05m people. The addition of 12 new passenger destinations from Dubai lifted traffic through the airport as local carriers Emirates and Flydubai expanded. Air Canada, Eurowings and China Southern also began operating to Dubai. Last year saw regional tensions and conflicts in countries including Yemen, Iraq and Syria, but Dubai Airports CE Paul Griffiths said: "We haven't seen any impact from regional conflicts." Dubai initially overtook London's Heathrow to become the world's busiest airport for international traffic in 2014. <br/>
Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (SHIA) is aiming to become a major transit hub for international transits, state-owned airport services Angkasa Pura II (AP II) said. AP II says the opening of the airport's new 42 hectare IDR10t (US$700m) Ultimate Terminal 3 in May 2016 will immediately give the airport an extra 15m passenger per annum capacity, reaching 25m once fully operational in 2017. AP II CE Budi Karya Sumadi said management is committed to making SHIA a viable competitor for existing regional hubs like Singapore’s Changi Airport and Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International (KLIA). “We want to make [SHIA] a transit airport, not for the cities in Indonesia, but for cities of the world,” he said. Budi said Jakarta handled 12m transit passengers a year compared to KLIA’s nearly 20-plus million transit passengers. <br/>