Southern Zone International Airport ( es, Aeropuerto Internacional de la Zona Sur) (this is a provisional name, as the project has not received a formal name yet) is an

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

planned for construction in

Osa Canton Osa is a canton in the Puntarenas province of Costa Rica. The head city is in Puerto Cortés district. History Osa was created on 29 July 1940 by decree 185. In pre- Columbian times was populated by Boruca which left legacies such as fields ...

Puntarenas Province Puntarenas () is a province of Costa Rica. It is located in the western part of the country, covering most of Costa Rica's Pacific Ocean coast, and it is the largest province in Costa Rica. Clockwise from the northwest it borders on the provinces ...

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

. The airport will be located in the region known as Southern Zone, where several

national parks A national park is a natural park in use for conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual ...

and other touristic attractions are located. The airport was a promise of former President

Laura Chinchilla Laura Chinchilla Miranda (; born 28 March 1959) is a Costa Rican politician who was President of Costa Rica from 2010 to 2014. She was one of Óscar Arias Sánchez's two Vice-Presidents and his administration's Minister of Justice. She was the ...

to boost the economic development of the region, and its construction was slated to start during her term, which ended in 2014. Initially, it was projected to build a large airport with a long runway capable of receive the

Airbus A380 The Airbus A380 is a large wide-body airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus. It is the world's largest passenger airliner and only full-length double-deck jet airliner. Airbus studies started in 1988, and the project was annou ...

, but this project has been recently rejected by the government because of the high cost and the environmental impact such an airport can cause. The project will have a total cost of US$42 million and the environmental impact and other assessment studies are underway. When open, the airport will be the third largest in the country, after

Juan Santamaría International Airport Juan Santamaría International Airport ( es, Aeropuerto Internacional Juan Santamaría) is the primary airport serving San José, the capital of Costa Rica. The airport is located in the city of Alajuela, 20 km (12 miles) west of downto ...

and

Daniel Oduber International Airport Guanacaste Airport, known before as Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport ( es, Aeropuerto Internacional Daniel Oduber Quirós) , and also known as Liberia International Airport, is one of four international airports in Costa Rica. It is ...

. Google Earth imagery of 2019-02-07 shows an apparently finished runway approximately 1000 meters long but little supporting infrastructure.

References

External links

Costa Rica Civil Aviation Authority
Website in Spanish only. {{authority control Airports in Costa Rica Proposed airports Buildings and structures in Puntarenas Province Proposed transport infrastructure in Costa Rica

See also

References

External links