Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Ernesto Cortissoz International Airport serves Barranquilla, Colombia's fourth-largest city, from the neighbouring municipality of Soledad on the Caribbean coast. It offers a single long, ILS-equipped runway capable of handling widebody jets, making it the principal gateway to northern Colombia for both airline and general aviation traffic. For a simulator pilot it combines a straightforward instrument approach with a rich history stretching back to the earliest days of Colombian commercial aviation.
Ernesto Cortissoz International Airport is the international airport serving Barranquilla, capital of the Atlántico department, though it physically sits in the suburban municipality of Soledad. Operated by Operadora Aeroportuaria del Caribe, it is built to accept widebody aircraft such as the Boeing 747, Boeing 767 and Airbus A350, and it acts as a focus city for Avianca and Aerosucre. For a VFR or IFR visitor in the simulator it is a useful long-runway, ILS-served field on Colombia's Caribbean coast with a genuinely interesting aviation past.
The airport lies in Soledad, Atlántico department, roughly 12 kilometres from the centre of Barranquilla, on Colombia's Caribbean coast. It is the principal airport of northern Colombia and, given its ability to receive widebody jets, sits within controlled airspace appropriate to a major international field.
The airport has a single physical runway, 05/23, some 9,845 feet long with a hard (asphalt) surface and lit for night operations. Runway 05 is equipped with an ILS, giving instrument approach capability to that end of the runway.
Barranquilla Approach is available on 119.1 MHz, with an ATIS broadcast on 113.7 MHz. Ground movements are handled on 121.9 MHz, and the tower callsign Barranquilla Tower operates on 118.1 MHz. A radio (RDO) frequency of 348.8 MHz is also listed for Barranquilla RDO. Runway 05 carries an ILS for instrument approaches.
The airport's origins trace back to the earliest years of Colombian commercial aviation, when SCADTA built what became Soledad International Airport as its main centre of domestic operations and maintenance. Pan American Airways later operated scheduled Douglas DC-3 and Boeing 307 Stratoliner services from the field to Panama City, Kingston and Miami. International services resumed in 1946 with Avianca DC-4s to Miami, Kingston and New York, while British South American Airways began a once-weekly Lancastrian service to London via Bermuda, styled the "Lightning Route to Europe" and taking some 26 hours. That same year, Transocean Airlines operated special DC-4 charters to Miami and New York, and KLM's Department of the West Indies flew DC-4s connecting through Barranquilla to Curaçao, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Trinidad. In the early 1950s LANSA opened a service to Havana, and TAXADER briefly served Miami in the 1960s. Avianca established one of Latin America's most important aircraft maintenance facilities at the airport in the mid-1950s, complete with two large hangars, specialist workshops and a technical school certified by the United States Civil Aeronautics Board. A novel rail-mounted electric cart system was also built in the early 1950s to speed the loading and unloading of DC-4 passengers and cargo. The opening of El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá in December 1959 reduced Soledad's relative importance, and although the runway was extended following delivery of Avianca's first Boeing 727 in 1966, the need for a fully modern airport eventually led to a new terminal, runway and taxiway complex being built just north of the old Soledad Airport. This new airport, named Ernesto Cortissoz after the Colombian aviation pioneer, was formally dedicated on 7 April 1981 by President Julio César Turbay and the Chief of the Aeronáutica Civil, Álvaro Uribe Vélez.
Ernesto Cortissoz International Airport today operates as a focus city for Avianca and Aerosucre and is capable of handling widebody aircraft including the Boeing 747, Boeing 767 and Airbus A350. In July 2007 the Aeronáutica Civil granted the airport "open skies" designation, allowing any airline in the world to operate to Barranquilla on any route and frequency, a move intended to promote the city's role as a gateway to the Caribbean.