Afonso Pena International Airport 5.07

Afonso Pena International Airport is the main airport serving Curitiba, Brazil, located in the adjoining municipality of São José dos Pinhais. It is named after Afonso Augusto Moreira Pena (1847–1909), the 6th President of Brazil. It is operated by Infraero.HistoryAs it was the case with many important Brazilian airports located in strategic points along the coast, Afonso Pena, was built by the Brazilian Air Force Ministry in partnership with the United States Army during the Second World War. However, since its construction was completed only in 1945, shortly before the end of the war, Afonso Pena never saw heavy military movement. In 1946 most of its movement comprised civil operations.The original passenger terminal was in use until 1959 when a brand new terminal was built. This second terminal is today used for cargo operations. In 1996, the present passenger terminal was built.The main problem of the airport are the unstable weather conditions of the region, particularly fog and smog in the morning hours of winter and the fact that the auxiliary runway 11/29 is too small and plagued with old equipment. There are also plans to upgrade runway 15/33 from an ILS CAT II runway to ILS CAT III.Since the bottleneck for the airport is the cargo capacity, the main runway was lengthened in 2008 to allow cargo flights to operate with greater loads and the cargo terminal was upgraded.On 31 August 2009, Infraero unveiled a BRL30 million (USD16 million; EUR11 million) investment plan to upgrade Afonso Pena International Airport focusing on the preparations for the 2014 FIFA World Cup which will be held in Brazil, Curitiba being one of the venue cities. The investment will include the enlargement of the apron and implementation of taxiways with completion scheduled for March 2011.