Juan Santamaría International Airport guide

Juan Santamaría International Airport is the busiest airport in Costa Rica and the second busiest in Central America. It opened on 2 May 1958 in the Alajuela Province, replacing the older airfield that stood where La Sabana Metropolitan Park is today. It was first known as El Coco International Airport and was later renamed for Juan Santamaría, a national hero of the 1856 war against William Walker.

The airport is owned by the Government of Costa Rica and run by Aeris Holding Costa Rica under a concession. It handled about 6.7 million passengers and 107,822 aircraft movements in 2025, a record year. A single asphalt runway, 07/25, is 3,012 metres long and takes wide-body aircraft such as the Boeing 777 and Airbus A350. A Concorde landed here for an airshow in 1999.

Avianca Costa Rica and Sansa Airlines base aircraft here, and Costa Rica Green Airways is also based at the airport. International traffic comes mainly from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama and Spain, with Copa Airlines, JetBlue, United Airlines and Iberia among the carriers. Sansa runs the domestic network to tourist destinations such as Tortuguero, Quepos and Tamarindo.