Teniente General Benjamín Matienzo International Airport (IATA: TUC, ICAO: SANT) is the international airport that serves Tucumán Province in the north of Argentina. It was built in 1981, and its terminal was inaugurated on 12 October 1986. This airport replaced the old one, located on the Ninth of July Park, because of its bad location (600 metres (1,969 ft) from the Plaza Independencia). The old airport had just one short runway 17/35 of (1600m/5000ft) and it was closed in 1987. Now the Bus Main Station uses parts of the appron of the airport, while the Music School from the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán uses its passenger terminal.
The Departing Sector was rebuilt in 2005. It can handle big aircraft such as the Airbus 310, Boeing 757, Boeing 767, McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and the Antonov An-124.
It has 135,000 m² of runways, 21,250 m² of taxiways, a 6,985 m² terminal, two hangars of 1,840 m², and parking places for 278 cars. It has a small cargo terminal of 50 m². Cargo flights are important. Tucumán is the fourth most important Airport in Argentina in order of Tons of Cargo (after Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Córdoba and Mendoza). Most of cargo flights are scheduled between September and November, taking fresh fruits to United States.
In 1988, it handled 710,000 passengers. In 1998, 568,000. And in 2008, just 287,000 passengers. Traffic is anyway improving: 193,000 passengers in 2007; 287,000 in 2008 and 365,000 in 2009.
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