What will the large airport that will open at the end of the year be like and what does it mean for Peru?

It will be three times larger than the current most important airport in the country and the first terminal in South America with a seismic isolation system – quite useful if you are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire like Peru is -, while it will use cutting-edge technology. in aircraft traffic management, automated baggage screening and body scanners.

These are some of the characteristics that the new airport will have, which starting at the end of the year will begin operating in Peru to replace its old terminal, adjacent to the new facilities, which after its closure after more than 60 years of operation will be used as offices and retail.

Jorge Chávez Airport City, as this work has been named, is considered one of the most important infrastructure projects in South America, with an investment of more than 2,000 million dollars by the private consortium Lima Airpor Partner (LAP), made up of Fraport AG, the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank.

“As an airport city concept, it is unique in the region. “It is the only and first airport that has been conceptualized as an airport city and everything is being built simultaneously as we are seeing right now,” he told the Voice of America Juan José Salmón CEO of LAP, during a foreign press visit to the work, which is already 80% complete.

The manager explained that, under this concept, where everything can be at hand, the aim is to “position Peru and Callao as a hub (center) of services in the region and not just the airport. “We want to attract companies that can build their headquarters here in the Airport City and connect with the clients they may have in the region.”

The new terminal, which will have a varied commercial offer, hotels and a fuel plant, is only 3 kilometers from the port of Callao and 70 kilometers from the port of Chancay, also under construction and in which Chinese capital is participating.

“Hummingbird” shape

Its design is inspired by one of the geoglyphs of the pre-Inca Nazca culture, the hummingbird, and there will be everywhere samples of “Peruvianness” for visitors, which will include the country's rich and varied gastronomy by the best Peruvian chefs.

In order to build the new airport, agricultural and industrial land adjacent to the current Jorge Chávez terminal had to be expropriated, adding just over 900 hectares in total, equivalent to the size of the Miraflores district, one of the most emblematic in Lima.

“The design of the building allows for modular expansion, what does this mean? That we can expand without affecting operations, but everything will depend on the development of demand in the future,” she told the VOA William Fullerton, director of the Jorge Chávez Airport City expansion project.

A new control tower and a second landing strip have already been delivered and are operating.

More than 6,000 people are working on the construction, in which some 10,000 ceramic fragments from pre-Hispanic cultures were found and 59 pieces that have been declared Cultural Heritage of the Nation were restored.

“The shape of the terminal and the way of processing is very similar, for example, to the Barcelona terminal. It is a very intuitive airport. From the moment they arrive, the passenger only has a single direction to travel in order to pass through the check-in area. check inthe security zone, the immigration zone, reaching the commercial area and from that point to the boarding lounges,” explained Salmón.

The new airport will have tomographic machines for baggage control and for detecting possible threats, machines for automatically returning trays, detection arches and 7 kilometers of baggage claim strip. With this, the terminal operators promise a “world-class airport”, but in which the State still has to properly resolve access to it.

“After the opening we will have an airport capable of processing 30 million passengers each year and we will continue with the expansion of 6 more gates… and it will be delivered in mid-2025,” said Fullerton. The operators of the new terminal anticipate that demand will increase to 40 million passengers, which would require an expansion in 5 to 6 years.

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