AERIS Holdings Costa Rica celebrated its 10th anniversary managing the main airport in Costa Rica. Under the figure of
During the administration of the Management, the Juan Santamaría International Airport (AIJS) went from having a terminal of 27,294 m2 to one of 52,354 m2 with 20 boarding rooms, 13 contact bridges, 25 self-checkpoints, and necessary infrastructure to facilitate the Migration processes and passenger inspection. In addition, 1 commercial building, 3 VIP rooms, and the first area for pets were built. It all corresponds to a modern and comfortable domestic terminal to serve people traveling to different areas of the country.
The previous works, added to others in the airfield, allowed to increase the numbers of operations and efficiency with less time in the takeoffs.
Today, there is the capacity to receive, simultaneously, up to 3 wide-body aircraft in contact-bridge. Thus, as the attraction of new airlines and
The work of AERIS represents an investment of 89 billion colones (US$ 162 million) in finished works, which includes those made to recover the time in which the airport had stopped its growth.
“Every year of the last decade at the Juan Santamaría Airport, we have opened works. This means a growth that goes ahead of air traffic, with better service for operators and comfort for passengers”, said Rafael Mencía, Executive Director of AERIS.
Adequate airport infrastructure and competitiveness have gone hand in hand with the increase in passenger arrivals. In the last 10 years, the synergy and connectivity strategies carried out between the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) and AERIS have allowed the country to double the number of commercial airlines from 14 to 28, as well as having access to 37 destinations around the world and exceed 5.3 million passengers that transit through this airport.
The strengthening of tourism through infrastructure investment has made it possible for the Costa Rican State to receive a sum of over 38 billion colones (US$ 70.3 million) for airport fees, between 2010 and 2018.
The public-private alliance between AERIS and the Costa Rican State has also contributed to the social and sustainable development of the communities near the airport, collaborators of the different operators and workers of
“The Juan Santamaría International Airport has a great future and reflects that the success of the association between public and private is achieved through goodwill, and the ability to negotiate for the development of Costa Rica”, concluded Mencía.