The San Jose Airport in Costa Rica Suffers from Limited Space to Expand.

Since 2005, San José’s airport has been classified as “special” by incoming pilots. In fact, due to certain characteristics that make it challenging for navigation, such as a lack of airstrip illumination, only the most experienced pilots are allowed to man Costa Rica Flights. In addition, due to the same lack of security measures, the airport is often subject to delays and cancellations.

Though the airport is usually navigable during early winter months (May, June, July), changing weather conditions have made takeoffs and landings increasingly difficult. Last night (June 11), as heavy fogs rolled in around 8pm, thousands of air passengers were affected. Between 8pm and 11pm, only two flights were able to land, and many were diverted to Liberia, where their passengers were forced to deboard and spend the evening.

An Organization of International Civil Aviation (OACI) representative said that, while the Juan Santamaría Airport infringes on a number of security rules and regulations, the airport has yet to fix any. In fact, authorities say that it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to improve every security issue at the airport.

One significant and impending improvement to Juan Santamaría will be new airstrip lights, which aid in airplane descent and landing. Neither airstrip 07 nor airstrip 25 currently have these approach lights, though according to Vivaina Martín, president of the Technical Aviation Consulters (CTAC), they have a good chance of being installed in 2008. With their help, safe-weather landings will prove easier and, more importantly, landings during heavy fog or rains will be made significantly easier.

Unfortunately, other problems are not so easy to fix. For example, large planes like the Airbus 340 that travels the Madrid-San José route, are incapable of parking in the normal area. Though the obvious solution would be to make the airports grounds larger, the surrounding roads and towns do not allow such a recourse.

Many of these issues are due to an aging airport that has not been improved in 60 years. When first built in 1958, Juan Santamaría was a state-of-the-art facility, designed to accommodate the smaller airplanes of those times. Unfortunately, today’s aircrafts are enormous in comparison, and far more foot traffic goes through any airport than its 1960s-era counterparts.

The Juan Santamaría Airport grounds are only 200 hectares, in comparison to Daniel Oduber’s 400 hectares (Liberia, CR), Tocumen’s 700 hectares (Panama), or El Dorado’s 900 hectares. The relatively small airport receives about 3 million travelers per year, not including 21 commercial airlines that fly in and out of Costa Rica. Even with such traffic, Costa Rica is unable to receive the true air monsters, like the Airbus A-380, which requires 15 meters more than Juan Santamaría’s 45-meter wide landing strip.

Though San José’s principle airport is smaller than many, several of its most pressing problems will improve with time and effort. Though some, like its size, are impossible to fix, the airport is committed to improving conditions and improving pilots’ relationship with the airport, hopefully taking it off the undesirable “special” list of airports.

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Filed under: Travel on June 12th, 2008