São Paulo’s city airport may get more flights per hour from March 2023

Congonhas Airport, located in the middle of São Paulo, could receive more flights from March 2023.

The airport operator applied for an increase in runway capacity for the next season – from Mar. 26 to Oct. 28 – and received approval from the National Civil Aviation Authority (Anac) on Sept. 5.

Congonhas is considered the second busiest airport in the country and has been operating at 41 takeoffs and landings per hour since 2021.

According to the new statement, there will be 44 movements per hour in the new season.

This increase in capacity is expected to result in about 500 more passengers boarding or disembarking at the terminal per hour.

On Aug. 18, Congonhas was awarded by the federal government to the private sector through an auction, with Spain’s Aena as the only interested bidder.

It offered R$2.45 billion (US$500 million), 231% more than the minimum bid.

A report in the Jornal Nacional newspaper on the day of the auction highlighted that there would be several bottlenecks in the modernization and expansion of Congonhas Airport.

One of them is the lack of space since directly in front of the airport runs the North-South Corridor, one of the city’s main transport axes.

On the other side are commercial buildings, hotels, and banks. Therefore, there is no vacant space that the airport could accommodate.

The airport cannot operate in the early morning hours because of noise, and the runways are too short for some larger aircraft.

A lawyer specializing in aviation told Jornal Nacional that Congonhas would have to relocate the space it already uses.

The airport used to have nearly 50 aircraft movements per hour, but its capacity was reduced after the Latam A320 accident in 2007.

According to Infraero, until September 2019, the airport received about 60 thousand people from 6 am to 11 pm, and there were about 590 flights per day.

The capacity expansion should allow more passengers per hour to board or disembark at the passenger terminal.