Viracopos-Campinas International Airport

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from Viracopos)
Jump to: navigation, search
Viracopos/Campinas International Airport
Aeroporto Internacional de Viracopos/Campinas
Viracopos Tower.JPG
IATA: VCP – ICAO: SBKP
Summary
Airport type Public
Operator Infraero
Serves Campinas, São Paulo
Location Campinas, Brazil
Elevation AMSL 2170 ft / 661 m
Coordinates 23°00′27″S 47°08′04″W / 23.0075°S 47.13444°W / -23.0075; -47.13444
Website Infraero VCP
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
15/33 10,630 3,240 Asphalt
Statistics (2008)
Passengers 1,083,878
Aircraft Operations 32,399
Metric tonnes of cargo 233,700
Sources: Airport Website [1], Infraero [2]

Viracopos/Campinas International Airport (IATA: VCP, ICAO: SBKP) is an international airport in Campinas, state of São Paulo, Brazil. The airport is located 99 km (62 miles) from the capital city of São Paulo and 20 km (12 miles) from Campinas, close by the huge Bandeirantes-Anhanguera highway complex, which connects the capital city to the interior of São Paulo state

Contents

[edit] History

Viracopos began in the 1940s as a simple landing field for the city Campinas. In the 1960s it was improved with a long strip and began to operate with regular commercial airlines, such as Varig, VASP and Real. In the 1970s it became the international airport for São Paulo, since the runway of Congonhas Airport was too short for the big jet planes used in international passenger traffic. This position was lost to Guarulhos International Airport in 1985 and Viracopos entered into a decade of stagnation, with all the international and most of domestic flights transferred to Guarulhos and Congonhas. Since 1995, however, in recognition of the strategic importance of Viracopos for the economy, the state company for airports administration Infraero has been investing steadily to implement the first phase of the new airport's master plan, making major improvements to the cargo and passenger terminals. The first phase was completed in the first half of 2004, when the airport received new departure and arrival lounges, public areas and commercial concessions. The second phase of the passenger terminal expansion project was completed in 2005 and built a new control tower, expanded storage and processing facilities for the cargo terminal, and revamped entirely the passenger terminal. A third phase of expansion, which will built a second landing strip, is in the planning and awaiting for environmental impact reports and money for building private land around the airport. A total area of 12.36 km2, with 3,172 urban and 88 lots will be expropriated by the government for this purpose.

[edit] Features

Besides being a fairly busy passenger terminal and now the main hub of Azul Brazilian Airlines, it is the second-busiest cargo airport in Brazil. One of its main features is that it is rarely closed due to bad weather conditions (an average 5 days per year). It was opened in 1960, as previously São Paulo lacked an airport capable of receiving (then) new long-range jet aircraft such as the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC-8.

So, before the completion of São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport in 1985, Viracopos was in theory the main international gateway to São Paulo. In practice, however, the airfield's distance from the city made it very inconvenient for passengers and airlines. As a consequence, international passenger service directly to Viracopos was limited, in spite of São Paulo being Brazil's largest and economically most important city; most international passengers to São Paulo simply opted to fly instead to Rio de Janeiro-Galeão International Airport and then connect to the smaller Congonhas Airport, which lies in the heart of São Paulo, very close to downtown and to the major business districts.

At that time, Viracopos even appeared on the Guinness Book of Records as the farthest airport from the city it allegedly served, a dubious title that now probably rests with Stockholm-Västerås Airport, a secondary airport serving (at least nominally) Stockholm, Sweden, located about 110 km (68 miles) from that city.

The Campinas region, like most of the interior of São Paulo state, is one of the most prosperous in Brazil, with an impressive economic output, and its local domestic passenger traffic, combined with the intense domestic and international cargo traffic that also serves São Paulo, is large enough to make Viracopos still a relatively busy airport. The number of offered flights has increased dramatically since Azul Brazilian Airlines made Viracopos its main hub, offering free bus transportation for passengers to and from several points in the city of São Paulo. However, there are no more scheduled international passenger flights operating at Viracopos.

Viracopos IATA airport code is VCP and Campinas IATA city code is CPQ. Sometimes both codes are used as one although there is a distinction between them in airline reservation systems: VCP, together with Congonhas (CGH) and Guarulhos (GRU), is part of the multiple airport system set around the city of São Paulo (code SAO). CPQ is the specific city code of Campinas. An airline that files services with the code VCP has flights displayed when passengers or travel agents request service from São Paulo, whereas flights filed with the code CPQ are displayed as service from Campinas, not São Paulo. A similar example is New York City (NYC), in which the airport codes LGA (LaGuardia Airport), JFK (John F. Kennedy International Airport), and EWR (Newark Liberty International Airport) are used for the same city, although the latter is located at a different city and state.

[edit] Facilities

Facilities at the airport include:

  • 150–180 flights per day
  • 2,500 passengers/day
  • 40 cargo airlines
  • 60,000 square meters ((646,000 square feet) of cargo terminals
  • 1,700 square meters (18,300 square feet) for animal cargo
  • 1,480 cubic meters (52,200 square feet) of refrigerated space
  • 65 m (213 ft)-high air traffic control tower

As a major import/export hub, Viracopos enjoys 'express lanes' for courier traffic which are exceptionally quick and unbureaucratic for Brazilian standards.

[edit] Airlines and destinations

Airlines Destinations
Azul Brazilian Airlines Belo Horizonte-Confins, Campo Grande, Curitiba-Afonso Pena, Florianópolis [begins 15 December], Fortaleza, Maceió, Manaus, Maringá, Navegantes, Natal [begins 1 December], Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro-Santos Dumont, Salvador da Bahia, Vitória
Gol Transportes Aéreos Belo Horizonte-Confins, Brasília, Curitiba-Afonso Pena, Rio de Janeiro-Galeão
TAM Belo-Horizonte-Confins, Brasília, Curitiba-Afonso Pena, Florianópolis, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro-Galeão, Salvador da Bahia,
TRIP Linhas Aéreas Belo Horizonte-Pampulha, Curitiba-Afonso Pena, Londrina, Rio de Janeiro-Santos Dumont
New cargo terminal at Viracopos

[edit] Cargo airlines (scheduled)

[edit] Accidents and incidents

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Airport Official Website
  2. ^ Infraero Statistics for the Airport

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viracopos-Campinas_International_Airport"