Coronel Felipe Varela International Airport guide

Coronel Felipe Varela International Airport serves the province of Catamarca in north-west Argentina. It sits on Provincial Route 33 at kilometre 22, in the Los Puestos area of Valle Viejo, south of the provincial capital. The ICAO code is SANC and the field lies at an elevation of about 474 metres.

The airfield was built in 1972 and received its first official flight, an Aerolineas Argentinas Boeing 737, on 3 January 1973. The passenger terminal was built between 1981 and 1987. Aeropuertos Argentina 2000 has run the airport since 1999. A single asphalt runway, 02/20, measures 2,800 metres, long enough for narrow-body jets.

Traffic is modest and almost entirely domestic. Aerolineas Argentinas flies to Buenos Aires Aeroparque and to La Rioja. The airport recorded 90,192 passengers and 1,485 aircraft movements in 2016, up from 31,428 passengers in 2010. A 2024 estimate from an airport guide puts annual traffic near 75,000 passengers.

The terminal is a single-level building with separate departure and arrival halls. It opens roughly from 7:00 to 21:00 around scheduled flights and closes overnight. Passengers find free Wi-Fi and one cafe, so most travellers eat in the city before the trip. The airport is named after Felipe Varela, a Catamarca-born soldier who fought in the Paraguayan War.