Public Works Minister Juan Carlos García, Tourism Undersecretary Verónica Kunze and the CEO of Nuevo Pudahuel, François-Regis Le Miere, announced the plan to deal with the increase in passengers that will occur during the holiday season and the summer vacations at Chile’s main airport. They also provided details on the opening of D Pier, which will allow ten aircraft to operate in addition to those already using the international terminal. The announcements came at the start of high season at Santiago Airport, as part of a plan to reactivate the economy alongside domestic tourism.
“We have an international standard airport that is the result of cooperative work between the public and private sectors. From now, Terminal 2-D will be fully operational during the high season, which will provide more space and comfort to passengers. This is very good news, because Santiago Airport is the main gateway for foreign tourists arriving in Chile. The standard of services also has to be top quality, because we want to show the friendly face of our country, a country that is recovering and has a lot to offer the world,” stated Public Works Minister Juan Carlos García.
Along the same lines, Tourism Undersecretary Verónica Kunze highlighted that “this new infrastructure will be essential to providing domestic and international passengers with a great experience when passing through the air terminal. We hope that this summer season will be very positive for tourism in Chile, with the arrival of 1.5 million foreign tourists and almost 30 million overnight trips taken. These figures will lead to a 2023 in which we plan to resume the levels of activity recorded before the pandemic.”
Given this increased demand, Nuevo Pudahuel will have nearly 150 self-check-in machines in the domestic and international terminals, 70 automated Self Bag Drop machines, and state-of-the-art scanners for baggage inspection by Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG) and Customs officials. This infrastructure aims to reduce passenger documentation processes.
“We are making all of our infrastructure and technology available to passengers to ease control and documentation processes, and thus improve their travel experience. We can now face this high season with two terminals and almost triple the area we had before opening the international terminal, which translates into more space and comfort for our passengers. We are also strengthening our field team, in coordination with public services,” stated François-Regis Le Miere, CEO of Nuevo Pudahuel.
The plan also includes implementing a mixed-operation system for Terminal 2-C, which will allow it to receive up to ten domestic flights, thus reducing inaccessible transfers between disembarking and boarding.
Assessment and projections
According to figures from Nuevo Pudahuel, it is estimated that 2022 will close with 18.8 million passengers passing through Santiago Airport. The figure is 23% lower than the almost 25 million passengers seen in 2019, prior to the pandemic.
The destinations with the highest air traffic this 2022 in Chile were Antofagasta, Calama, Iquique, Puerto Montt and Concepción. With regard to international flights, the most popular routes were to and from Lima, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Sao Paulo and Panama City.
According to the projections of the operator of Santiago Airport, six million passengers are expected to transit the airport during the summer vacations, which begin this month and end in March 2023. Almost 60% of them will travel on domestic flights within Chile.