| Airport of the Pacific | |
| Type: | Public/military[1] |
| Owner: | Government of El Salvador |
| Operator: | (CEPA) |
| City-Served: | La Unión, El Salvador |
| Location: | Conchagua, El Salvador |
| Opened: | 2033 (estimated) |
| Built: | 2023–present |
| Timezone: | CST |
| Utc: | UTC–6 |
| Coordinates: | 13.3°N -139°W |
| Website: | Official website |
| Pushpin Map: | El Salvador |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Planned location in El Salvador |
| Pushpin Label: | Conchagua |
The Airport of the Pacific (Spanish; Castilian: Aeropuerto del Pacífico)[2] is a planned joint-use civilian international airport and military base that will be located in Conchagua, El Salvador, and will serve the city of La Unión and the planned Bitcoin City. The airport was proposed by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele during his 2019 presidential campaign as a part of his "Plan Cuscatlán" and construction was approved by the Legislative Assembly on 26 April 2022. Terraforming began in March 2023.
In 2019, then Salvadoran presidential candidate Nayib Bukele published "Plan Cuscatlán," an outline of his objectives and goals for his term as president of El Salvador. Within "Plan Cuscatlán," he proposed the construction of a new airport in eastern El Salvador, then referred to it as the "Airport in the East" (Spanish; Castilian: Aeropuerto en el Oriente). Bukele cited that many of the passengers who pass through El Salvador's Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez International Airport in south-central El Salvador live in eastern El Salvador, and that a new airport in the east would simultaneously ease congestion of El Salvador's main international airport and bring jobs and an economic boost to the east of the country.[3]
On 9 March 2020, the Salvadoran government began an international public offering, titled the "Pacific Airport Project," to foreign companies to study the design of the airport. In total, 44 companies in total showed interest in the project; of the 44 companies, 11 presented their economic models to the Salvadoran government.[4]
On 24 February 2022, the government was given an economic and financial report for the airport by Peyco-ALBEN 4000 Consortium, an air transportation company. The report estimated that the airport would create 4,700 new jobs in its first year of operation. The plan also estimated that within its first 10 years of operation, the airport would accommodate between 1 and 3 million passengers and around 18,000 aircraft movements.[5] Federico Anliker, the president of the (CEPA) also estimated that the airport's construction would create over 23,700 new jobs. In March 2022, CEPA confirmed that the airport would be located in Conchagua, a municipality of the La Unión department just south of the city of La Unión.[6]
On 25 April 2022, the Legislative Assembly's Economic Commission approved a law that would authorize the construction of the airport.[7] On 26 April 2022, the Legislative Assembly approved the law the Economic Commission approved the day prior, officially authorizing the construction of the airport.[8] The law, titled the "Law for the Construction, Administration, Operation, and Maintenance of the Airport of the Pacific", passed with 67 of the 84 votes in favor. According to the Legislative Assembly, nine locations were considered; six were eliminated due to the perceived difficulty that would face aircraft landings, and the Legislative Assembly settled on construction at the selected site to minimize its effect on the environment.[9]
In October 2022, 10 of the 150 landowners affected by the airport's construction stated that they would not sell their land to the government. CEPA stated that they will seek to come to a settlement with the landowners, and Federico Anliker, the president of CEPA, accused them of being "manipulated" by the country's opposition political parties to oppose the airport's construction.[10] In January 2023, Cristosal, a non-government organization, claimed that three laws regarding the airport's construction "open the door to corruption" and called upon the Supreme Court of Justice to block the laws.[11]
Terraforming for the airport began in March 2023.[12] The airport will be 126530ft2 in size and construction is estimated to cost US$500 million over 10 years.[13]
The airport's construction is opposed by the Indigenous Movement for the Integration of the Struggles of the Ancestral Peoples of El Salvador (MILPA), which claims its construction violates the people's right to private property and degrades the area's environment.