An exclusive, nonstop rail service between the Ezeiza station on the Roca line and Ezeiza International Airport is the alternative Aeropuertos Argentina considers most viable to improve access to the country’s main terminal, according to its CEO, Daniel Ketchibachian, in an interview with Aviacionline (which can be read in full at this link) and other Argentine media during the ALTA Airline Leaders Forum in Mexico City. The idea, he clarified, does not yet have a project or a timeline.
“The truth is there is nothing formal we can announce,” acknowledged the executive, who preferred the company to first complete the stage of the investment plan committed under the concession extension. Even so, he maintained that access to Ezeiza will be unavoidable on the agenda, because “Aeroparque will reach its limit at some point, and Ezeiza will be all the growth of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area and of Argentina.”
That is why the concessionaire will propose working groups with the Secretariat of Transport and other stakeholders. “Thinking about a closer Ezeiza is something we are obliged to do,” he said.
An exclusive railcar, with doubts over demand
The proposal would consist of connecting the rail station with the airport through “an exclusive railcar, so to speak, that runs back and forth without stops,” new and “more in tune with tourism.” Ketchibachian estimated the distance between the two points at a kilometer and a half.
The CEO himself admitted that the project would require financing and that its commercial viability is far from assured. “The business case is not so clear: you have to get all the way to the station, it is a heavy investment, and Ezeiza's advantage is that the maximum is an hour and a half,” he explained.
Add to that the competition from ride-hailing apps, which in Buenos Aires are cheap compared with other cities around the world, especially when two or three people travel together.
The highway, more urgent than the train
In the comparison, Ketchibachian assigns more impact to a road project on the airport access road, at the height of the AFA grounds, where traffic jams up at the interchange. According to the executive, the government is moving forward with the tender for the corridor and the concessionaire is in contact with those who would carry out the works, although it does not yet know the project.
“For me that is sometimes a more important solution than the train, because it saves you the traffic jam,” he said. The Acceso Sur section, which includes the Riccheri-Ezeiza highway, is part of the road concession tender being carried out by the national government.
Vertiports in the planning
Vertiports also appear in the company's plans, although without deadlines. “In every plan we are making, we have them in all of them, and we are working on it a great deal, mainly because of the energy side of the charging capacity it needs for battery swaps and for space, because afterwards, if you did not do it, you lost,” he explained.
A team from the company is working on a proposal for Aeroparque that envisages connections with areas such as Nordelta. For Ketchibachian, the key to eVTOLs lies in cost compared with the helicopter, which he described as “the most expensive of all, the most inefficient of all.”
Asked about timing, the CEO avoided giving dates. “The timelines keep moving: five years ago they said five years, and now they still tell you five years,” he noted, and anticipated that the first application will be cargo, then passenger transport with a pilot and, later on, uncrewed.
Buses and boats to the airport door
Integration with medium- and long-distance buses is the most advanced part of the strategy. The company will open a new bus bay area in front of Aeroparque and is working on similar solutions at Ezeiza, where “there is room to spare,” and in Córdoba. In Formosa, it wants buses to reach the door of the terminal, a service for which the concessionaire does not charge the transport companies.
In Córdoba the idea is more ambitious, though equally incipient. The company wants passengers to be able to buy the flight and the transfer to cities such as Villa María or La Falda in a single ticket, allowing the kind of seamlessness that exists in Europe, for example, where trips including air + rail connections can be put together. “It is something we still have to work on with the airlines,” admitted Ketchibachian, who defended intermodality as a response to the growth of air traffic. “If aviation keeps putting more and more people on board, those means of transport are going to be essential,” he concluded.
The river connection is another of the ideas the company is analysing for Aeroparque. Ketchibachian mentioned the possibility of opening a landing point for vessels in front of the terminal, which would allow arrivals from Tigre. “At the airport we work a lot on intermodality, especially at Aeroparque, which is in the centre: that you can leave by app, in your own car, by taxi,” he explained, and added that this combination of modes “helps you connect with everything.”
