El Dorado, Colombia’s biggest airport in its capital city, Bogota, is ready to launch its new domestic terminal on October 22.
Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos will inaugurate El Dorado’s new terminal with Cecilia Alvarez-Correa, Minister of Transport, and Santiago Castro, General Director of Civil Aeronautics, next Tuesday.
This terminal will arrive almost six months ahead of schedule and will be the second terminal completed in almost exactly a year after a new international terminal was completed in October 2012.
“We were able to get ahead because we had the experience of the international terminal, in which we had a lot of success with our systems and operations,” said Piedad Toro, Chief Architect of Opain, the airport’s contracting company.
While there was some surprise that Colombia’s largest airline Avianca will not be operating out of the new domestic terminal immediately, the President of Avianca, Fabio Villegas, assured local media that it would arrive in the new terminal soon enough.
“Avianca is expecting to transfer to the new El Dorado terminal very soon, provided that adequate attention is given to the diverse needs of travelers, along with favorable conditions for land and air operations,” said Villegas.
Avianca catered for 7.1 million domestic travelers between January and August of this year. The airline is responsible for 55% of domestic flights in Colombia.
In the future, Civil Aeronautics and the government intend to move Avianca to this new terminal, relocating other regional airlines to the Airlift terminal, Avianca’s current home.
This new terminal will have 140,000 square feet reserved for businesses and restaurants, and those already poised to open next week include McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts, El Corral and Oma, among others. The total investment in the new domestic terminal has reached $900 million.
El Dorado Airport has received mixed reviews this year, being named one of the best airports in the world and one of the worst by different travel sites. This new terminal hopes to settle this dispute once and for all.
MORE: Bogota’s airport is flying high in world rankings
MORE: Bogota’s El Dorado ranked among world’s worst airports
Sources
- El 22 de octubre se estrena muelle nacional de El Dorado (Portafolio)
- Terminal de El Dorado arrancará sin Avianca (Portafolio)
- Nuevo muelle nacional del aeropuerto El Dorado (El Tiempo)