Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport is the principal gateway to Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city, and a hub for Avianca Ecuador and LATAM Ecuador. Its single long, ILS-equipped runway sits on level ground within the broad delta of the Guayas River, just north of the city centre, and doubles as the refuelling stop for domestic flights heading out to the Galápagos Islands.
José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport (ICAO: SEGU, IATA: GYE) serves Guayaquil, the capital of Guayas Province and Ecuador's most populous city. It is named after José Joaquín de Olmedo, a noted Ecuadorian poet, the city's first mayor and a former president of Ecuador, and it previously carried the name Simón Bolívar International Airport. The field is a hub for Avianca Ecuador and LATAM Ecuador and is the second busiest airport in the country, making it a natural focus for anyone flying South American airline routes in the simulator, as well as a jumping-off point for flights to the Galápagos.
The airport lies on the Avenida de las Américas, about 5 kilometres north of Guayaquil's city centre, within the broad delta of the Guayas River. The surrounding terrain is level in all quadrants, giving an unobstructed approach environment typical of a low-lying coastal river-delta airport. Field elevation is 13 feet.
The airport has one physical runway, 03/21, of hard surface construction and lit. Runway 03 is 8,491 feet long and Runway 21 is 8,370 feet long; Runway 21 is equipped with an ILS.
Guayaquil APPROACH operates on 119.3 MHz, Guayaquil TOWER on 118.3 MHz, with GROUND on 121.9 MHz and RADIO services on 126.9 MHz and 1002.4 MHz. An ATIS broadcast is listed on 115.9 MHz. The Aero Club del Ecuador uses an internal frequency of 123.45 MHz. Runway 21 is served by an ILS for instrument approaches.
The airport's position on the Avenida de las Américas, north of Guayaquil's centre, and its setting within the flat, waterlogged delta of the Guayas River provide the main visual cues for pilots approaching the field, with level ground and river channels extending across all quadrants.
The airport was renamed in 2006 in honour of José Joaquín de Olmedo, poet, first mayor of Guayaquil and former president of Ecuador, replacing its earlier name of Simón Bolívar International Airport. A new 50,000 square metre national and international terminal opened on 27 July 2006, with an inaugural flight the following day, though most airlines did not fully transfer operations until August 2006; the old terminal was subsequently closed and later converted into a convention centre. Planning for the new terminal and an expanded runway dated back to 2003-2004, when it was decided that the existing infrastructure could not meet the city's growing needs, though building an entirely new airport at Daular was not yet commercially viable. The airport was designed to serve Guayaquil for ten to fifteen years from 2006, after which, once passenger numbers reached around 5 million a year, a new airport was envisaged at Daular, some 20 kilometres outside the city on the road to Salinas. In July 2014 the domestic terminal area was enlarged, raising capacity to around 7.5 million passengers a year. The airport was named Best Airport in Latin America for 2008 and 2009, and was ranked second best in the region in 2011.
The airport is operated by Terminal Aeroportuaria de Guayaquil S.A. (TAGSA) under a concession contract with the Guayaquil Airport Authority, running until 2031; TAGSA is a subsidiary of Corporación América Airports, which operates dozens of airports across the Americas and Europe. It functions as a hub for Avianca Ecuador and LATAM Ecuador, and all domestic flights from mainland Ecuador to the Galápagos Islands route through Guayaquil to refuel and pick up passengers, since it is the closest Ecuadorian mainland point to the islands.