Simón Bolívar International Airport (Venezuela)
Template:Airport frame Template:Airport title Template:Airport image Template:Airport infobox Template:Runway title Template:Runway Template:Runway Template:Airport end frame
- For the airport with this name in Ecuador, see Simón Bolívar International Airport (Ecuador)
Maiquetia International Airport (IATA: CCS, ICAO: SVMI), officially known as Simon Bolivar International Airport, Maiquetia (Spanish: Aeropuerto Internacional de Maiquetia Simón Bolívar), is located in Maiquetía, Venezuela, near Caracas.
Simply called 'Maiquetia' by the local population, this is the most important airport of the twelve international airports in Venezuela. The Simon Bolivar Airport is the main hub for Aeropostal. Since 1961, it had been the main hub for VIASA, Venezuela's former flag carrier that went into bankruptcy in 1997.
It handles flights to many important cities in the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe.
Since 2000, the Simon Bolivar Airport has been undergoing major changes in order to meet international standards and to improve passenger traffic, security, immigration areas and customs areas. Security measures have become top priority since the 9/11 events, and now departure areas and arrival areas are completely split into the lower and upper levels of the airport. An on-site hotel is currently being built and is expected to open by the end of 2007.
Statistics
As of 2005:
General
- Area: 882 ha.
- Terminals: 3 (International, Domestic and Auxiliary)
- Parking lots: 3
- Parking lots capacity: 4,560
- Gates
- International terminal: 14
- Domestic terminal: 11
- Remote gates:
- International terminal: 8
- Domestic terminal: 6
- Yearly mean temperature: 28 °C (82.4 °F)
- Visibility: 10 km. (90% of the year)
- Wind conditions: calm (year long)
Auxiliary terminal handles cargo flights, charter flights and private aircraft.
Passenger Traffic
| Terminal | Traffic |
|---|---|
| Domestic | 3,844,204 |
| International | 3,235,430 |
Traffic movement
| Terminal | Landing | Take off |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic | 49,992 | 50,662 |
| International | 21,316 | 21,472 |
Cargo traffic
| Unloaded freight | Loaded freight |
|---|---|
| 40,703,534 | 8,781,941 |
Unit: metric tonnes
Airlines
- Aerolíneas Argentinas (Buenos Aires-Ezeiza)
- Aeropostal (Aruba, Barcelona (VZ), Barquisimeto, Bogotá, Curacao, Havana, Lima, Maracaibo, Maturín, Medellin, Miami, Porlamar, Port-of-Spain, Puerto Ordaz, Santo Domingo, Puerto Plata, Valencia (VZ))
- Air Canada (Toronto)
- Air Europa (Madrid)
- Air France (Paris-Charles de Gaulle)
- Alitalia (Milan-Malpensa, Rome-Fiumicino)
- American Airlines (Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, New York-JFK, San Juan)
- Avianca (Bogotá)
- BWIA (Port of Spain)
- Continental Airlines (Houston-Intercontinental, Newark)
- Conviasa (Bogotá, Maracaibo, Porlamar, Port of Spain)
- Copa Airlines (Panama City)
- Cubana de Aviación (Havana)
- Delta Air Lines (Atlanta)
- Iberia (Madrid)
- LAN Airlines (Miami, Santiago de Chile)
- LAN Peru (Lima)
- Lloyd Aereo Boliviano (Bogotá, Santa Cruz de la Sierra)
- Lufthansa (Frankfurt)
- Mexicana (Mexico City)
- Santa Barbara Airlines (Aruba, Barquisimeto, Caracas, Cumaná, Guayaquil, Las Piedras, Madrid, Maracaibo, Mérida (VZ), Miami, Quito, San Antonio, Santa Bárbara del Zulia, Tenerife-Tenerife North, Valencia (VZ))
- TACA
- TAP Portugal (Funchal, Lisbon, Porto)
- Varig (Aruba, Rio de Janeiro-Galeão, São Paulo-Guarulhos)
Notes
- On January 5th 2006, Venezuelan authorities closed the main access road between Caracas and Maiquetia-Simon Bolivar International Airport due to a bridge failure (which entirely collapsed on March 19th). Officials are working on a brand-new bridge to fully reestablish the road connection and plan to have it constructed by the second half of 2007. In the meantime, a 1.5-mile two-lane road has been paved to go around the fallen structure. Because of the aforesaid, travel time by car is increased up to 90 minutes during rush hour.
- Venezuelan civil aviation authorites are currently in talks with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to settle a dispute with the US over limitations for Venezuelan carriers, which were imposed in 1995. If negotiations should happen to fail by April 25th 2006, restrictions on US civilian and cargo flights would take effect immediately.