Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Viru Viru International Airport is Bolivia's principal air gateway, lying on the flat pampa some 17 km north of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. It offers a single long concrete runway with ILS guidance, making it a straightforward and busy international arrival point for VFR and IFR traffic alike in the lowlands of the Santa Cruz Department.
Viru Viru International Airport (ICAO: SLVR, IATA: VVI) serves the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra and is Bolivia's busiest and most important international airport. It sits at a modest elevation of 1,220 ft amid the flat, tropical lowlands north of the city, a marked contrast to the high-altitude airports of the Andean plateau such as La Paz. For a simulator pilot, it is notable as a long-runway international hub operated by the state agency NAABOL, offering a realistic training ground for large-aircraft operations at low elevation in South America.
The airport lies in the Departamento de Santa Cruz, Bolivia, approximately 17 km (11 mi) north of the city centre of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, within the Warnes province. As Bolivia's primary international gateway it is expected to sit within controlled airspace appropriate to a large international airport, though specific class boundaries are not detailed in the available sources.
Viru Viru has a single physical runway, 16/34, oriented north-south and measuring 11,484 ft in length with a hard (concrete) surface. Both directions are lit, and the runway is equipped with an ILS, usable for approaches to runway 34.
Radio communications at Viru Viru are handled under the callsign Santa Cruz Radio and Santa Cruz Tower. Published frequencies are: Approach (APP) 119.7 MHz, Clearance Delivery (CLD) 121.8 MHz, Ground (GND) 121.9 MHz, Radio (RDO) 127.1 MHz, and Tower (TWR) 118.6 MHz. The field is equipped with an ILS for instrument approaches to runway 34.
Plans for an intercontinental airport at this site were drawn up in 1965 under General René Barrientos, then president of Bolivia, and construction eventually led to the airport's completion and inauguration in 1983, replacing the older El Trompillo Airport as the city's main air terminal. Upon opening, Viru Viru became Bolivia's principal gateway for international flights and served as the hub for Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano until that carrier ceased operations in 2008. In 1997 the Bolivian government granted a 25-year concession to Airport Group International to operate Viru Viru alongside the airports at La Paz and Cochabamba, with the concession later passing through TBI plc and then Spain's Abertis/AENA. The airport was nationalised by the Bolivian government in 2013, and in March 2022 its operating company SABSA was superseded by the newly created state agency NAABOL, which now manages Bolivia's airports. The airport's name is drawn from the indigenous Guarani language, with several proposed meanings including a round hill nearby, a since-vanished river, or simply "pampa" or "plain", reflecting the flat terrain on which the airport was built.
Viru Viru remains Bolivia's busiest airport, handling over four million passengers in 2023, and serves as a focus city for Boliviana de Aviación alongside services from a range of South American, North American and European carriers. It is operated by the state agency NAABOL. No simulator-specific scenery or PPR requirements are noted in the available sources.