Guanacaste Airport, Costa Rica continued breaking visitor records and growing in 2023 as more passengers than ever arrived.
The 2023/24 Christmas and New Year Holiday season saw Guanacaste Airport in Liberia, Costa Rica achieve a new milestone by breaking its visitation records for the fourth time in 2023. The airport, part of the VINCI network, recorded the busiest day in its history just before Christmas (Saturday, December 23) when it received 10,252 passengers. On that day, the single-terminal airport handled six domestic flights and 25 international flights, with a majority arriving from the United States and Canada.
The latest of many records last year
Other records broken by Guanacaste last year include the 181,840 passengers who arrived in January 2023, setting a brand-new monthly record at the time. Then March 2023 broke that record by receiving 184,617 passengers. The record was also set in March when Saturday the 11th of that month saw 9,922 passengers arrive. This marked the airport’s highest traffic day until December 23.
Since it opened under its Coriport concession in 2012, Guanacaste Airport has demonstrated remarkable growth, despite the setback of the pandemic. Some 12 million passengers, both international and local flights have passed through the airport since 2012, and both 2022 and 2023 saw visited numbers exceed pre-pandemic figures. Today, Guanacaste terminal hosts 15 international airlines and one domestic airline, connecting to 23 international destinations. It’s now Central America’s fifth-busiest airport.
Guanacaste Airport is a multiple-award-winner.
In 2020, it was one of the first airports in the world to receive health accreditation from the ACI and also won ACI’s Best Airport Award for Quality of Service for the second consecutive year. In 2021 and 2023, Guanacaste won ACI’s Best Airport in Latin America and Caribbean with less than 2 million passengers per year award.
César Jaramillo, the general manager of Guanacaste Airport, said 2023’s success is the outcome of a strategic collaboration involving the government, airlines, and the tourist industry. Jaramillo affirmed the airport’s commitment to operating within capacity and providing a positive experience for travelers coming to this part of Costa Rica.
Officially called Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport and with an airport code of LIR, Guanacaste Airport was originally called “Liberia Airport” by most. However, it changed its name to “Guanacaste Airport” in 2021 to avoid confusion with the African country of Liberia, and to reflect the connection the entire province of Guanacaste as a whole, rather than just the city of Liberia. (https://www.centralamerica.com/experiencing/travel/guanacaste-airport-costa-rica-breaking-records/)
