El Salvador International Airport

El Salvador's main airport opened in 1980 at Comalapa, near San Luis Talpa, about 50 kilometers southeast of San Salvador. It sits close to the Pacific coast. It replaced Ilopango, the old airport at the edge of the capital, which was too small and boxed in tightly by terrain for jet aircraft. The government picked the coastal site because the land there was flat and open, with room to expand.

Building a big airport in the opening years of El Salvador's civil war was a real gamble. The site had reliable weather, though, and plenty of open room to grow. The airport's fortunes soon became tied to TACA, an airline founded in 1931 that made tiny El Salvador the connecting hub of Central America. Passengers from across the isthmus connected through Comalapa on their way north and south.

Many Salvadorans living in the United States connected through the airport on trips home. TACA merged into Avianca in 2010, and the hub survived as Avianca El Salvador. In 2014, the airport was renamed for Oscar Arnulfo Romero, the archbishop shot in 1980. The title Saint was added in 2018, when he became a saint. Later expansion added new gates and cargo capacity, making it a regional logistics gateway.

Comalapa operates a single runway, 07/25, about 3,200 meters long, on flat coastal ground with generally reliable weather and no terrain problems. Avianca El Salvador bases its fleet here and runs connecting banks, meaning grouped arrival and departure waves. These gather traffic from Central America and push it north toward the United States and Mexico.

Other flights head south toward Colombia and Peru. American, United, Delta, Spirit, and Volaris El Salvador add many direct flights to US cities with large Salvadoran communities. A separate cargo terminal serves textile and farm exports, and the government promotes the airport as a regional logistics hub.