Puerto Barrios Airport ( es, Aeropuerto de Puerto Barrios, ), formerly Izabal Air Base (''Base Aérea de Izabal''), serves the city of

Puerto Barrios Puerto Barrios () is a city in Guatemala, located within the Gulf of Honduras. The city is located on Bahia de Amatique. Puerto Barrios is the departmental seat of Izabal department and is the administrative seat of Puerto Barrios municipality. ...

, the port of Santo Tomás de Castilla and the Guatemalan Caribbean. It is operated and administrated by Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil (DGAC).

History

Puerto Barrios Airport is located in the northern part of the city of

, near the shore of

Amatique Bay Amatique Bay is a large bay in the Gulf of Honduras, along the eastern coast of Guatemala and Belize. It stretches from Santo Tomás de Castilla in the south to Punta Gorda in the north, where it opens to the Caribbean Sea. Its south-eastern lim ...

. In the 1920s and 30s Puerto Barrios was a seaplane destination only; a first concrete runway was built by the

United States Government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

for strategic reasons. It was later used by the

Guatemalan Air Force The Guatemalan Air Force ( es, Fuerza Aérea Guatemalteca or ''FAG'') is a small air force composed mostly of U.S.-made aircraft throughout its history. The FAG is a subordinate to the Guatemalan Military and its commanding officer reports to th ...

, known under the name "Base Aérea de Izabal". In 2002 the airport was equipped with a

VOR-DME In radio navigation, a VOR/DME is a radio beacon that combines a VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) with a distance-measuring equipment (DME). The VOR allows the receiver to measure its bearing to or from the beacon, while the DME provides the sla ...

radio beacon with the help of COCESNA, the Central American Corporation for Air Navigation. Being located near the port of Santo Tomás de Castilla, today the airport is of special interest for cruise ship operators, who carry passengers to important attractions throughout the country on chartered flights. Puerto Barrios has always been a logistics center, which is emphasized in the city seal, which depicts a ship, a

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often ...

, an airplane, and a truck. In January 2017, the airport was undergoing renovations. The DGCA was investing 1.5 million

Guatemalan quetzal The quetzal (; code: GTQ) is the currency of Guatemala, named after the national bird of Guatemala, the resplendent quetzal. In ancient Mayan culture, the quetzal bird's tail feathers were used as currency. It is divided into 100 ''centavos,'' ...

s into the project, which it expected to complete by 28 March.

Aviation in Puerto Barrios

Past

* In 1925

SCADTA Sociedad Colombo Alemana de Transportes Aéreos german: Deutsch-Kolumbianische Luftverkehrsgesellschaft), or SCADTA, was the world's second airline, and the first airline in Latin America, operating from 1919 until World War II. After the war, SCA ...

of Colombia made a historical journey with two Dornier Wal flyboats from Barranquilla to Palm Beach stopping in Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador,

Puerto San José Puerto San José is a town on Guatemala's Pacific Ocean coast, in the department of Escuintla. It has a population of 23,887 (2018 census),

Amatitlán Amatitlán () is a town, with a population of 98,176 (2018 census),Citypopulation.de
Population of cities & t ...

, Puerto Barrios, Cozumel, Havana and Miami. * In 1928 a

Curtiss Falcon The Curtiss Falcon was a family of military biplane aircraft built by the American aircraft manufacturer Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company during the 1920s. Most saw service as part of the United States Army Air Corps as observation aircraft ...

supported by the Colombian government, called "Ricaurte" flew from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

to Bogotá, stopping in Jacksonville, Havana, Puerto Barrios, Puerto Cabezas, Colón, Cartagena and Barranquilla. The plane suffered a mechanical failure in Puerto Barrios, which delayed it there for several days. * In the 1930s,

Pan American World Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

had scheduled flights from Miami to San Salvador stopping in Havana, Cozumel, Mérida, Belize and Puerto Barrios, using Sikorsky 40 flying boats.

After World War II

* In the 1950s and 60s,

Aviateca Aviateca S.A. branded Avianca Guatemala is a regional airline headquartered in Guatemala City. Aviateca was under government ownership and remained so until 1989 when it joined the Grupo TACA alliance of Central America and was privatized. It ...

, the former national airline, connected Puerto Barrios with other destinations in Guatemala. * Inter Regional, a regional subsidiary of

Grupo TACA Transportes Aereos del Continente Americano, (''Air Transports of the American Continent'', known and branded formerly as TACA International), operating as Avianca El Salvador, is an airline owned by Kingsland Holdings based in El Salvador. As T ...

in Guatemala, offered scheduled flights to Guatemala City from 1999, using Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft. There were up to two daily flights (TA 1911, TA 1920, 1923). Two times a week there was a scheduled stop at Rio Dulce airstrip on the incoming flight. Flying time to Guatemala City was scheduled with 1 hour, 05 minutes. There were also flights from

Mundo Maya International Airport Mundo Maya International Airport ( es, Aeropuerto Internacional Mundo Maya, ), formerly Flores International Airport as indicated by its 3-letter code, is an international airport located in the suburb of Santa Elena, in the city of Flores, ...

to San Pedro Sula stopping in Puerto Barrios. All scheduled flights were suspended in 2002 due to lack of demand.

Airlines and destinations

Incidents

* 24 May 1956: A

Douglas C-47 The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota (Royal Air Force, RAF, Royal Australian Air Force, RAAF, Royal Canadian Air Force, RCAF, Royal New Zealand Air Force, RNZAF, and South African Air Force, SAAF designation) is a airlift, military transport ai ...

on a scheduled

flight crashed at

Panzós Panzós () is a town, with a population of 22,068 (2018 census), and a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. On 29 May 1978, the village of Panzós was the site of a massacre in which between 30 and 106 local inhabitants (fi ...

after leaving Puerto Barrios. 30 occupants were killed. * 15 November 1960: A

Beechcraft AT-11 The Beechcraft Model 18 (or "Twin Beech", as it is also known) is a 6- to 11-seat, twin-engined, low-wing, tailwheel light aircraft manufactured by the Beech Aircraft Corporation of Wichita, Kansas. Continuously produced from 1937 to November ...

of the

made a belly landing after a mechanical failure on a night flight. * 28 April 2007: A

Cessna 210 The Cessna 210 Centurion is a six-seat, high-performance, retractable-gear, single-engined, high-wing general-aviation aircraft. First flown in January 1957, it was produced by Cessna until 1986. Design and development The early Cessn ...

(TG-MAP) crashes on a private flight between Puerto Barrios and San Pedro Sula, killing the pilot.ASN

References

External links

Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil

* {{authority control Airports in Guatemala Izabal Department