Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport

Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport is the principal airport serving Cusco, the gateway city to Machu Picchu and the former capital of the Inca Empire — and consequently one of the most visited tourism airports in South America. Located in the Wanchaq district just 3 mi (5 km) from the historic center of Cusco, the airport sits at an extraordinary 10,860 ft (3,311 m) elevation, placing it among the very highest commercial airports in the world and one of the highest handling scheduled widebody service. Named after Alejandro Velasco Astete, a pioneering Peruvian aviator who in 1925 completed the first flight across the Andes, the airport is the operational choke point for the Machu Picchu tourism economy and one of Peru's most strategically important civil airfields. The airport handles 10 routes across 6 destinations through 4 airlines. LATAM Peru, Sky Airline, JetSMART, and Avianca operate the core schedule, with the dominant single route being the Lima shuttle — one of the busiest domestic air corridors in South America by passenger volume, supporting the overwhelming majority of international tourists who transit via Lima (LIM). International services to La Paz (Bolivia) operate with BoA and connect the Peruvian and Bolivian sides of the Andes. Several charter operators and limited commercial links to Bogotá and Santiago also operate seasonally. The single asphalt runway 10/28 measures 11,146 ft (3,398 m), specified at length to compensate for the severe density-altitude performance penalty at over 2 mi (3 km) above sea level — takeoff distances at CUZ are substantially longer than at sea level for any given aircraft. The mountainous topography, narrow approach corridor through the Sacred Valley, and afternoon turbulence confine operations almost entirely to morning hours; by early afternoon local winds and convective cloud typically force closure or diversion. A long-discussed replacement airport at Chinchero, 18 mi (29 km) northwest, has been in planning since the 2010s and would relieve CUZ's operational constraints and protect Cusco's historic core from expansion pressure.