La Aurora International Airport

La Aurora is being renovated, along with other airports in Guatemala, such as Mundo Maya International Airport, Quetzaltenango Airport, Puerto Barrios Airport, and San José Airport.

In July 2007, seven new gates were opened. These gates are equipped with jetway bridges and modern conveniences, also a new parking garage was also built and it can handle up to 500 vehicles.

There are brand new ticket counters. 2007 brought significant gate expansion (11 new gates were available starting December 2007). The airport now has two concourses. The northern concourse has 12 traditional gates and 3 remote gates. The central concourse, is used for larger aircraft as it provides 4–6 gates depending on the size of the aircraft.

The airport's runway currently measures 2,987 m × 60 m (9,800 ft × 197 ft).[1] There have been efforts in the past to expand the runway but this has not yet been possible since there's a commercial area to the north of the runway and a small ravine near the southern side of the runway. Still, the renovation of the runway is in progress. The first phase consists in repaving the runway as well modernizing the illumination system. Future plans to expand the taxiway repave and move all the cargo facilities to San José Airport in Escuintla and Puerto Barrios Airport in Izabal. This will make room for more passenger terminal area and improved taxiways. Finally, the airport administration building is being refurbished and a regional terminal is being built.

La Aurora International Airport has 2 Exclusive VIP Lounges. Los Añejos Business Lounge, and Copa Club, a VIP Lounge for passengers travelling on Copa Airlines and United Airlines[2]

Cargo operations are handled beside the passenger terminal building by COMBEX-IM or in the DHL hangars. [3]

The head office of the Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil is located in the airport Zone 13.[4][5]

In 2016, the airport handled 2,759,347 passengers.[10]

• On 1 March 1980, a Douglas C-47 of the Fuerza Aérea Guatemalteca was damaged beyond repair near La Aurora.[11]
• On 6 April 1993, TACA Airlines Flight 510, a Boeing 767, ran off the end of Runway 19 (now Runway 20) after landing. A passenger on board filmed the landing, which showed the plane coming in too steep, too fast and on a runway with standing water from a tropical storm which had just passed over. A great amount of runway had passed under the plane before touchdown and the pilot forced the landing. In spite of thrust reversers used, the plane could not slow down in time, began to shudder from excessive wheel-braking, overshot the runway and crashed into some structures. Surprisingly, there were no fatalities and the only injured people were 3 non-passengers. The aircraft was written off.[12]
• On 28 April 1995, Faucett Flight 705, a Douglas DC-8 leased by Millon Air, overshot the runway and crashed into several houses. All three crew members onboard survived, but 6 people on the ground were killed.[13]
• On 21 December 1999, Cubana de Aviación Flight 1216, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 (leased to Cubana by AOM French Airlines) overshot runway 19 during landing and crashed into a residential area. 16 of the 314 people on board were killed, along with two people on the ground.[14]
• On 4 June 2018, the airport had to close due to the 2018 Volcán de Fuego eruption.

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.

• Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil (in Spanish)