El Tehuelche Airport guide

El Tehuelche Airport (ICAO SAVY) serves Puerto Madryn, the Patagonian port city on Golfo Nuevo in Chubut Province. It sits on the northern access road, the Acceso Norte off Route 3, at an elevation of about 132 m. The airport opened in 1946 under Argentina's First Five-Year Plan, which aimed to connect Patagonia with the rest of the country.

The single asphalt runway, 06/24, is 2,500 m long and 45 m wide. The airport closed for 93 days from 15 February 2024 while the runway and taxiway pavements were rebuilt, and reopened on 19 May 2024 with a Flybondi flight from Buenos Aires. A terminal expansion opened that July. It quadrupled the pre-boarding area, moved security screening apart from it and added a food court to the main hall. The apron holds only one Boeing 737 or similar aircraft at a time.

Traffic is almost entirely domestic. Aerolíneas Argentinas and Flybondi fly scheduled services to Buenos Aires, and LADE operates irregular flights. The airport handled 79,840 passengers and 718 aircraft operations in 2019, a year when the Buenos Aires Aeroparque route carried 78,523 passengers. Trelew airport, about an hour away by road, is larger and busier and carries more of the region's traffic.