On Friday, 14th September 2012, top leaders of international airports, regional aviation representatives from countries around the world as well as project and investment partners who have worked side by side with Airport Consulting Vienna (ACV) for the past two decades joined the 20th anniversary celebration at the world renowned Schoenbrunn Castle’s Gloriette in Vienna.
The festive atmosphere of the gala evening, held at the very heart of Austria’s imperial history, bridged ACV’s traditional corporate values with an innovative outlook for future challenges. The special guest star of the evening was the world-famous musical actress Maya Hakvoort. With a breathtaking performance she took Johann Frank, ACV’s Managing Director, and his guests on a musical journey to international places that had become synonymous with ACV’s business.
Following its foundation in 1992, ACV has advised and worked with many international airports around the world. Today, ACV’s track record covers some 400 consulting projects and 80 airport privatisations. This successful company history has been shaped by a number of significant milestones:
Kiev’s Boryspil International Airport became ACV’s first international client in 1993, and has benefitted from ACV’s strategic advice ever since. Today, the airport is firmly entrenched as an important hub between Europe and the Russian region, and Boryspil and ACV are planning to extend their successful cooperation.
In 1995, ACV took part in its first international privatisation project when it represented the Vienna International Airport and formed a consortium together with Australian companies in a bid for the Melbourne Airport. The project, however, was awarded to a fellow competitor.
A year later, in 1996, ACV evaluated the project potential of the privatisation of the Buenos Aires airports together with strong local partners. Although the project did not receive a ‘go-ahead’ from investors, it was the company’s first privatisation project in Latin America.
ACV’s first major international project award back in 1999 was the BOT project for the development of the new international passenger terminal at the Atatürk Airport in Istanbul. On behalf of the Vienna International Airport, ACV established the TAV consortium together with Tepe and Akfen. TAV then commissioned ACV with a long-term Technical Services Agreement, comprising a know-how transfer and the luggage trolley concession.
In 2004, ACV started to advise and support BasEL Aero, today’s holding company of the main airports in South Russia, i.e. the Krasnodar, Sochi, Gelendzhik and Anapa airports. The project – which is still ongoing today – became ACV’s biggest consultancy project in the Russian region. The ACV team delivered the development programme, the corporate strategy, the business plan as well as the turn-around programme. As a result, the airports are now growing strongly and are generating cash.
ACV reached its most recent milestone with the project award in Brazil, where it joined INVEPAR, one of Brazil’s leading infrastructure companies, in the privatisation of the Brazilian airports and the development of the Guarulhos – the biggest airport in Latin America. The project is now underway and ACV has taken the lead in providing the know-how and business expertise for planning and designing the new passenger terminal as well as in the development of the terminal retail concept.
Combing innovative ideas with the company’s traditional values of reliability, flexibility, quality work and a strong customer orientation are future challenges. In this sense, ACV will venture out into new markets, aiming at new opportunities with new product fields and newly established partnerships with industrial partners. ACV will remain focused on fulfilling its role as one of the most experienced experts in the field of airport privatisations, PPPs and airport transactions all over the world. For its 21st year in business, ACV already has a lot of projects in the pipeline: strengthening its market position in both Brazil and Russia is a key objective.