Ezeiza’s main runway will be cut to 1,850 meters, barely over half its usual 3,300, from October 25 to November 11, and 14 international airlines have already canceled or rerouted flights.
For travelers with international flights to or from Buenos Aires between late October and mid-November, the picture is uneven by airline: some of the busiest routes to the United States and Europe are suspended or rerouted, while Argentina’s own carriers and several Latin American airlines are holding close to normal schedules. Anyone flying a suspended route in that window should check directly with their airline rather than assume a flight will operate as booked.
Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, the company that operates Ezeiza under a concession from the Argentine government, announced the roughly $100 million modernization project in February. Crews will replace the runway’s lighting system and repave a taxiway, and the runway, 11-29, will run at less than two-thirds its normal length for 17 days. The secondary runway is being rehabilitated in the same window, and work on it had already begun by early August.
Airlines have spent the months since adjusting schedules. 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, while 16 say they will operate close to normally.
The closest precedent 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 its flights were diverted to Ezeiza, pushing that airport’s 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.