Val de Cans/Júlio Cezar Ribeiro International Airport

Val de Cans / Júlio Cezar Ribeiro International Airport is the principal international gateway to the Brazilian Amazon and the primary hub for Pará, the country's second-largest state by area. Serving Belém — a city of 2.5 million at the mouth of the Amazon River — the airport handles 42 scheduled routes to 30 nonstop destinations operated by nine airlines, with its route network notable for combining Brazilian domestic trunk traffic with direct service across the Guianas, the Caribbean, and onward to Europe via Lisbon. The airport operates two asphalt runways: the 9,186 ft (2,800 m) primary 07/25 and a shorter 6,004 ft (1,830 m) crosswind strip 03/21. Neither is runway-lighted, which constrains post-sunset operations and reflects the airport's consolidated day-and-early-evening schedule. Originally built as a U.S. Army Air Forces staging base in World War II for the South Atlantic ferry route to Africa, the field retains a distinctive geometry from its wartime origins and was returned to Brazilian control after 1945. Managed by NOA Brasil under a 30-year concession awarded in 2019, Belém is positioned as the logistical and humanitarian hub for Amazonian operations: aeromedical evacuation, riverine cargo transshipment, and federal public-safety flights into the interior all route through BEL. The airport gains additional international significance from Pará's selection to host the COP30 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém in November 2025, which prompted substantial terminal refurbishment and apron expansion. TAP Portugal operates the only year-round transatlantic route (Lisbon), complemented by Copa Airlines' Panama City connection to North American networks.