Simón Bolívar International Airport

Simón Bolívar International Airport or Maiquetía "Simón Bolívar" International Airport is an international airport located in Maiquetía, Vargas, Venezuela about from downtown Caracas, the capital of the country. Simply called Maiquetía by the local population, it is the main international air passenger gateway to Venezuela among the twelve international airports in the country. It handles flights to major destinations in the Americas, the Caribbean and some in Europe.HistoryThe airport opened in 1945 as the Aeropuerto Internacional de Maiquetía. The site had been recommended as an appropriate location for an airport by Charles Lindbergh on behalf of Pan Am. The USA subsidized the construction of the airport as part of the Airport Development Program. Luis Malaussena was the architect who designed the original passenger terminal.It was regularly visited by the Anglo-French supersonic airliner Concorde until the 1980s. Commencing in the late 1970s, Air France operated weekly Concorde service between Caracas and Paris via a stop at Santa Maria Airport (Azores) located in the Atlantic Ocean.Between 1952 and 1962, two new wings were added to the passenger terminal, and the runway was expanded to 2000 m. Lighting was installed on the runway and approach zones to allow night operations. In 1956 a new runway was built, and in 1962, it was expanded to 3000 m long by 60 m wide.In the 1970s a new international terminal was constructed to offer increased capacity with a domestic terminal opening in 1983. Since 2000, the airport has been undergoing major changes in order to meet international standards and to improve passenger traffic, security, immigration areas, and customs areas. Security measures have become top priority since the September 11 attacks, and now departure areas and arrival areas are completely split into the lower and upper levels of the airport. The Proyecto Maiquetía 2000 (Project Maiquetia 2000) was completed in 2007 which added new customs and immigrations areas, a new cargo terminal, and a connecting passageway between the domestic and national terminal.