Ezeiza's main runway will run at less than two-thirds its normal length for 17 days this October and November while crews rebuild its lighting and repave a taxiway, a long-scheduled closure that has already pushed 14 international carriers to cancel or reroute flights.
The company that operates Ezeiza under a concession from the Argentine government, Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, announced the roughly $100 million modernization project in February, saying the airport's main runway, 11-29, would be restricted to 1,850 meters, barely over half its usual 3,300, while its lighting system is replaced and a taxiway is repaved. The secondary runway is being rehabilitated in the same window, and work on it had already begun by early August.
The restriction runs from October 25 to November 11, and airlines have spent the months since the February announcement adjusting schedules around it. American Airlines is suspending its Ezeiza operation entirely for the period. Delta is canceling its Atlanta and New York flights, and United is dropping its Houston route. Lufthansa is suspending service and Air Europa has stopped selling tickets for the affected dates. Iberia is cutting its Madrid frequency from three flights a day to two and adding a refueling stop in Montevideo, while Emirates, Air Canada and British Airways are rerouting through Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo. Aerolineas Argentinas, LATAM, Avianca, GOL and JetSMART have said they expect to keep close to a normal schedule, with Aerolineas adding a Rio stop on some long-haul routes rather than cutting them outright. In total, 14 airlines have reported altering or suspending service during the closure, while 16 say they will operate close to normally.
The clearest precedent for how Ezeiza absorbs this kind of disruption came in late August, when Aeroparque, Buenos Aires' downtown airport, closed for 55 hours for its own runway lighting and patching work. More than half of Aeroparque's flights were diverted to Ezeiza, pushing its traffic up roughly 80 percent for the duration. The national aviation regulator has since opened sanctions proceedings against JetSMART for canceling 85 flights during that closure without responding to a passenger-assistance information request, a preview of the kind of regulatory friction the much longer October-November closure could generate at a larger scale.
For travelers with international flights booked to or from Buenos Aires between late October and mid-November, the practical picture is uneven by airline rather than uniform: some of the busiest routes to the United States and Europe are being suspended or rerouted outright, while Argentina's own carriers and several Latin American airlines are holding close to their normal schedules. Anyone flying a suspended route during that window should check directly with their airline rather than assume a scheduled flight will operate as booked.
Source: La Nacion; El Cronista; Infobae; Aviacionline; Sir Chandler; Datagremial; Cholila Online; El Economista; Aviones.com.