Chile's Ministry of Public Works (MOP) has announced that the consortium Grupo Nuevo Pudahuel has started operating the Santiago's international airport.

In February 2015, MOP awarded the concession contract to expand and operate Santiago's international airport to the Grupo Nuevo Pudahuel consortium, comprising Vinci Aeroports S.A.S., Aeroports de Paris S.A. and Astaldi. The team, which proposed that a total of 77.56% of concession revenues will be for the government, beat out competition from four other shortlisted consortia.

Grupo Nuevo Pudahuel started operating the airport on 1 October 2015 when the last concession contract finished. The concession contract has a period of 20 years.

The concession includes the development of a 157,00 m² new international passenger terminal, the upgrade and expansion of the existing 110,000 m² domestic passenger terminal, the construction of more than 4,000 new parking spaces in a multi-storey car park, and a number of landscaping projects.

The total project investment is estimated at UF14.8 million (US$552 million).

According to the MOP, the airport handled most that 15 million passengers in 2013, despite only having capacity for 9 million. The project aims to increase the airport capacity to 30 million per year by 2030 and to 50 million per year by 2045.

Santiago International Airport is located in Pudahuel, 15 km (9.3 mi) north-west of downtown Santiago, which accounts for nearly 70% of Chile's airport passenger traffic. It is Chile's largest aviation facility and the South America's main gateway to Australia and New Zealand.