About RIOgaleão - Tom Jobim International Airport
Rio's gateway on an island in Guanabara BayThe Rio de Janeiro/Galeão – Antônio Carlos Jobim International Airport, operated as RIOgaleão, is the city's principal long-haul gateway. From the air its setting is the story: the whole complex occupies the northern end of the Ilha do Governador, the largest island in Guanabara Bay, about 20 kilometres from the centre of Rio, its two long runways reaching out over reclaimed ground toward the water. From naval base to international hubAviation came to the Galeão in 1923 with a naval air station, and the site was granted international airport status in 1945. The first passenger terminal opened in 1952, but the airport as travellers know it dates from 1977, when the large Terminal 1 was inaugurated to handle Rio's growing intercontinental traffic. In 1999 it was named after Antônio Carlos Jobim — Tom Jobim, the composer of "The Girl from Ipanema" and a defining figure of bossa nova. The airport todayRIOgaleão has two passenger terminals and a south pier, served by two runways — the main runway (10/28) is 4,000 metres long, the secondary (15/33) 3,180 metres. Expansion works delivered by the concessionaire in 2016 raised the terminals' annual capacity from 17 million to 30 million passengers. Since August 2014 the airport has been run under a concession by a consortium of the Singapore-based Changi Airport Group and Brazil's Infraero.Seen from above, the airport is a hard geometry of runways, aprons and terminals set against the soft curve of the bay, with the city's mountains and the Serra do Mar rising beyond — one of the most scenic approaches of any major airport in the Americas.