I'm dating myself by describing the upcoming news as "broken record" stuff. But that's about what it is. This will sound familiar to those who follow the story, but the payoff is that it's good news.
Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, the Mexican airport group known as ASUR (NYSE:ASR), reported April 2007 passenger traffic up 18% year over year. Domestic traffic showed a very strong 21.2% growth rate, led by Veracruz and Merida, while international traffic moved up a total of 15.9%, led by a big rebound at Cozumel and Cancun.
As I've noted in the past, 2006's passenger numbers don't make for the best benchmarks because, at that time, the two biggest international destinations in the group, Cancun and Cozumel, were still rebuilding from devastating hurricane damage. So I usually go through the exercise of comparing the 2007 numbers to 2005, as it's probably a more realistic baseline.
On that basis, total passenger traffic is up 15.3% from the 2005 to the 2007 period -- proof enough, to this investor, that ASUR's big tourist draws have mostly gotten their groove back.
This week, ASUR also announced the May 17 opening of its new facilities at Cancun. The new terminal will double international capacity at the airport and feature state-of-the-art security and new commercial facilities, which ought to add more of those fatter (non-government-regulated) revenues to ASUR's top line.
And hopefully, this opening will start one of those virtuous cycles, or good-time feedback loops. Comfortable, attractive facilities that create happy travelers are a good way to attract more flights from the likes of JetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU), Continental (NYSE:CAL), UAL's (NASDAQ:UAUA) United, and AMR's (NYSE:AMR) American.
There's a good reason this business has attracted that strange buyout-proposal-that's-not-quite from its largest shareholder. It's just that great an opportunity. It's not priced as well as it was when I first recommended it to Fool readers, but I'm holding my shares for the long term and suggest that others do the same.
ASUR is up 50% (vs. 18% for the S&P 500) since Seth recommended it to Fool readers just over a year ago. He's a member of the Motley Fool Global Gains team, which scours the world for opportunities like this one and delivers a pair per month. A free trial will show you the latest ideas.
At the time of publication, Seth Jayson had shares of ASUR but no positions in any other company mentioned here. See his latest blog commentary here. View his stock holdings and Fool profile here. JetBlue is a recommendation of Motley Fool Stock Advisor. Fool rules are here.
