El Dorado International Airport

Brief Information

El Dorado grew from temporary structures into Colombia’s main aviation hub: almost half of all the country’s takeoffs and landings take place at this airport. It is located west of Bogotá, so its scale is connected not only with the capital, but also with its role as a transfer point for domestic and international routes.

The first permanent passenger terminal was built in the 1950s as a multi-story machine for flight services: passenger areas were located below, while airline offices, administration, the weather station, air navigation, traffic services, and the control tower were above. Later, growth in traffic led to a second runway and the Avianca hub. That is why El Dorado is better understood not as a single building, but as an airport that has continually reshaped its space for a growing flow of aircraft, passengers, and connections.

What to Notice Right Away

In Terminal 1, it is worth noticing the simple geometry: an H-shaped plan separates the two main concourses. The north side is assigned to international flights, the south side to domestic ones. This is not a decorative form, but a way to separate different flows and connect them with passageways: escalators, moving walkways, and elevators operate in both concourses, while gates are distributed among domestic, international, and remote flights.

Puente Aéreo clearly reveals another era of the airport. After the 2006 renovation, the paths to the aircraft were tiled over the former taxiways; passengers walked on foot, crossed the movement of buses and baggage carts, and then climbed to the aircraft by an aluminum stairway. This terminal shows how quickly layouts that were once considered normal for commercial aviation become obsolete.