Mexico’s three listed airport groups handled 133 million passengers in 2025, a 2.3% increase over 2024. The aggregate number is fine. The dispersion within it is where the investment case lives.
OMA grew traffic 8.5%. GAPB grew 2.7%. ASUR grew 0.3%. Same country, same macro environment, same regulatory framework. Three entirely different outcomes, driven by three entirely different strategic bets. International investors who screen “Mexican airports” as a single sector are missing the point.
Three concessions, three geographies, three theses
The Mexican airport system was privatized in the late 1990s under 50-year concession agreements. Three groups emerged with regional monopolies: GAPB (Pacific coast, 12 airports), ASUR (Southeast, 9 airports), and OMA (Central-North, 13 airports). They do not compete with each other directly, as each holds exclusive rights within its geographic zone. The competition is for investor capital.
What separates them is not operational quality. All three run margins that global airport operators would envy. What separates them is exposure: to which types of travelers, to which economic drivers, and to which strategic risks and catalysts over the next 12 to 24 months.
GAPB is the diversification play. Its network spans Guadalajara (Mexico’s second-largest metro), Tijuana (the US border crossing hub), and four Pacific coast resort destinations. It handles a mix of business, domestic leisure, and cross-border traffic that no other Mexican airport group replicates. The December 2025 shareholder approval of the CBX business combination, which merges the Cross Border Xpress pedestrian bridge at Tijuana into GAPB’s corporate structure, is the most significant structural event in the sector right now. GAPB will issue roughly 90 million new shares to absorb AMP (its strategic partner) and CBX-related entities, bringing the share count from approximately 505 million to 595 million. The dilution is real. The question is whether CBX’s revenue stream and cross-border traffic optionality are worth it.
We think they are, and our forthcoming GAPB equity research report will make the full case. CBX gives GAPB something no other airport operator in the Americas possesses: a direct physical link to the US air travel market without requiring a US airport concession. Tijuana’s airport effectively serves as a southern California overflow hub, and the CBX bridge handles over 4 million crossings annually. Once consolidated into GAPB’s financials, this transforms the revenue profile.
ASUR is the Caribbean tourism franchise expanding into the US. Cancun is Mexico’s single most important tourist airport, and ASUR’s economics are built around it. But the growth story in 2025 was not in Mexico, where ASUR’s domestic traffic fell 4.8% in Q1 and remained negative through most of the year. The story was the December completion of the USD 295 million URW Airports acquisition, which gives ASUR commercial operations at terminals in JFK, LAX, and O’Hare.
This is a different kind of airport business. ASUR is not operating these US airports; it is managing retail concessions inside their terminals. The revenue model is lower-margin but asset-light, and it gives ASUR a foothold in the world’s largest aviation market. Combined with its existing operations in Colombia (six airports) and Puerto Rico (San Juan), ASUR is now the most geographically diversified airport operator in Latin America. The risk: ASUR’s core Mexico business is stagnating. Full-year 2025 passenger traffic across ASUR’s entire network grew just 0.3%, dragged by weak domestic trends. The US retail play needs to deliver returns quickly enough to compensate for the mature Cancun franchise.
OMA is the nearshoring bet. Its 13 airports sit in Mexico’s industrial north, with Monterrey as the anchor. And Monterrey is where the nearshoring story translates directly into air traffic: 8.5% total passenger growth in 2025, with international traffic up 12%. New long-haul routes to Madrid, Tokyo, and Seoul consolidated in 2025, with Paris launching in April 2026. The Monterrey airport expansion, Phase 2, will more than double Terminal A’s capacity from 5.9 million to 12.5 million passengers, with completion targeted for autumn 2026.
OMA also approved its 2026 to 2030 MDP (Master Development Program) in December, committing MXN 16 billion in investment across the network, with roughly half allocated to Monterrey. OMA’s adjusted EBITDA margin of 74.5% is the highest among the three groups, a function of Monterrey’s high-value business traffic and OMA’s growing non-aeronautical revenue lines. Restaurant revenues rose 22% in 2025, VIP lounges grew 30%, and the industrial park posted a 44% revenue increase. VINCI Airports, the world’s largest private airport operator, holds a 29.9% strategic stake and is actively contributing operational best practices.
The risk for OMA is concentration. Monterrey accounts for roughly half of OMA’s total traffic. If nearshoring momentum stalls, or if USMCA renegotiation introduces trade friction that slows industrial activity in northern Mexico, OMA’s growth narrative collapses faster than the other two groups.
Mexico's three listed airport groups, FY 2025
Source: Company filings, BMV. Passenger traffic and financial data as of FY 2025. GAPB Mexico-only passengers estimated at ~63.6mm (total includes Jamaica). EBITDA margins are adjusted (ex-IFRIC 12 construction revenue).
The traffic divergence tells the real story
Cumulative YoY passenger traffic growth, 2025 quarterly
Source: Company monthly traffic reports filed with BMV. Growth rates are cumulative YTD vs. prior year. Q4 figures reflect full-year implied growth.
The chart above illustrates what the annual figures obscure. OMA sustained 8 to 9% growth throughout the year, quarter after quarter, without any deceleration. This is structural demand, not a base effect recovery. GAPB grew steadily in the low single digits, consistent with a diversified network where no single driver dominates. ASUR flatlined, with Mexico traffic negative for three consecutive quarters and international operations (Colombia and Puerto Rico) providing just enough offset to keep the full-year number positive.
For investors, this dispersion pattern is more informative than the aggregate. If your thesis is on Mexican domestic consumption recovery, GAPB offers the broadest exposure. If your thesis is on Mexico as a geographic bridge to the Americas, ASUR is building that platform. If your thesis is on nearshoring and industrial capital formation, OMA is the most direct expression.
What the market is not pricing
The regulatory framework deserves attention. Mexico’s airport concessions operate under Maximum Tariff structures negotiated in five-year MDP cycles with the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC). The October 2023 episode, when DGAC unilaterally attempted to restructure fee arrangements, reminded investors that regulatory risk in Mexican airports is real. The resolution was favorable, but the willingness of the current administration to intervene in regulated sectors should not be dismissed.
More importantly, the IFRIC 12 accounting distortion makes headline revenue comparisons across the three groups unreliable. Airport concessionaires must report construction revenue under IFRIC 12 when they invest in concession infrastructure. This inflates reported revenue and deflates reported margins, creating noise that makes ASUR’s top line look larger than its economic revenue would suggest. When analyzing these companies, we always strip IFRIC 12 construction revenue and focus on adjusted EBITDA from aeronautical and non-aeronautical operations only.
On valuation: OMA has historically traded at a discount to GAPB and ASUR, with mid-2025 EV/EBITDA multiples around 16 to 17x versus GAPB at roughly 20x and ASUR at roughly 19x. That discount made sense when OMA was the smallest, least diversified, most domestically concentrated of the three. It makes less sense when OMA is delivering traffic growth three to four times its peers, margins 800 to 1,000 basis points wider, and has the clearest structural tailwind (nearshoring) of any listed company in Mexico.
The bottom line
These are three separate investment theses wearing the same sector label. GAPB is a transformation story: the CBX consolidation changes the company’s financial and strategic profile in ways the market has not fully absorbed. ASUR is a geographic expansion story: the USD 295 million entry into US airport retail is a bet on platform scale across the Americas. OMA is a pure nearshoring play: the highest growth, highest margin, highest concentration operator, levered to whether the industrial north continues to boom.
We would not own all three as a basket. The right choice depends entirely on which macro thesis you hold, and we think each deserves its own analysis.
Our GAPB equity research report, the next in our publication sequence, will provide the full financial model, valuation, and thesis. The CBX business combination is the analytical centerpiece, and we believe it is the most underappreciated catalyst in the Mexican airport sector.