On March 25th, with the presence of executives from AENA Brasil, alongside government representatives, press, and the airport community, the unveiling of an ambitious project for the Congonhas airport took place, one of the busiest in Latin America, located in the heart of São Paulo City.
AENA named the project «new Congonhas Airport», with the goal of ensuring reliability, safety, trust, and sustainability for users and airlines operating at the São Paulo airport. The concessionaire claims that Congonhas will receive an investment of R$ 2 billion (~USD 400 million), with construction beginning in October 2023 and concluding in June 2028.
Challenges presented by Congonhas
One of the challenges posed by the concessionaire are the limitations of the runway with the infrastructure surrounding the airport, the taxiway, and the proximity of the current terminal. Additionally, they detailed the limited availability of boarding gates and positions for medium-sized aircraft such as the Airbus A321 and Boeing 737 MAX 8/9. The absence of rapid exits was another point of criticism, reducing the available slots.
The company also criticized the interferences between executive and commercial aviation, considering that the former recorded several incidents in recent months that caused the total shutdown of the airport. Finally, the airport access points are inefficient for the current passenger movement.
The works to be carried out in Congonhas
According to the presentation given this morning, the concessionaire will seek to optimize the reduced spaces within the airport perimeter, which would imply demolishing the hangars of GOL, AZUL, VoePass, and LATAM, part of the current terminal, and the taxiway connecting runway 17R/35L.
The current taxiways will be readjusted and a rapid exit named Golf (G) connecting runway 17R/35L will be constructed, allowing shorter times between landings and takeoffs. Also, a new taxiway parallel and distant to the mentioned runway will be built, to improve airside safety and allow operations with larger aircraft.
A new departures and arrivals terminal will be built where the hangars to be demolished were located, about 105,000m2 (twice the current size), allowing for more than 29 million passengers annually. The current terminal will remain as a check-in area, lounge, and pre-boarding with the corresponding expansion. Seven positions with telescopic jetways will be added, to total nineteen, plus eighteen remote positions.
A Varig hangar will be maintained, cataloged as historical heritage, and will be transformed into a boarding area for remote positions. The interventions, according to Aena, will not have an operational impact and will be carried out in phases until completion in 2028.
Direct access from the terminal to Line 17 – Gold of the São Paulo Metro, which is actually a monorail, is also planned, expected to be inaugurated in June 2026.
Congonhas Airport in numbers
Congonhas is the second busiest airport in Brazil and the seventh most important in Latin America, having moved 22,032,407 passengers in 2023 in 230,000 operations. Additionally, the Congonhas-Santos Dumont (Rio de Janeiro) route holds the record for one of the busiest links in the region, with 118 flights per day.
The airport has two runways of 1940 meters in length (17R/35L) used by the majority of airlines and another of 1,495 meters (17L/35R) usually used by companies with turboprops or small to medium private jets.
Currently, Congonhas receives regular flights from Azul, Azul Express, GOL, LATAM, and VoePass connecting 41 national cities with 596 daily operations.
The airport expansion announcement comes after facing problems in recent months, such as system failures, power outages, and technical issues. It is worth noting that in August 2023, the Spanish company AENA took over the concession of Congonhas, after the federal government auctioned off 15 Brazilian aerodromes in 2022.
