President João Suassuna - Campina Grande Airport
President João Suassuna - Campina Grande Airport (CPV)
Located 114 kilometers from the capital of Paraíba, João Pessoa, the Campina Grande Airport – Presidente João Suassuna is consolidating itself as one of the main gateways to the municipality of the countryside region of Paraíba, considered an industrial center in the Northeast Region and home of São João, a traditional June festival, known as the biggest of its kind in the world.
In 2020, Aena Brasil took over management of the airport with the commitment to expand the equipment's capacity and improve the unit's infrastructure, which since 2021 has been undergoing renovations. The first results were soon noticed. The following year, in 2022, Campina Grande Airport – Presidente João Suassuna received the title of Best Regional Airport in the Northeast in the 2022 Mais Brasil Aviation Award.
In the same year, the concessionaire started structural works in the unit. In 2023, Presidente João Suassuna airport was awarded by the National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac), in the Sustainable Airports Program, an initiative to promote sustainability in national airports, placing third in its category.
Inaugurated in 1940, Campina Grande Airport was the only airfield in the region, used to receive cargo on commercial flights by airlines LAP – Linhas Aéreas Paulista and Loide Aéreo Nacional. But it was only in 1960 that the airport received its current name, a tribute to the Paraíba politician and lawyer João Urbano Pessoa de Vasconcelos Suassuna, who was governor of Paraíba from 1924 to 1928. At that time, the governor position was called president.
João Suassuna is honored by his son, the writer, playwright, poet and essayist Ariano Suassuna (1927-2014), author of a panel that illustrates one of the walls of the airport terminal. In addition to Ariano's work, three other paintings by the painter Vera Méllo, which portray the culture of Paraíba with images of São João and vegetation, decorate the equipment.
In the 1990s, Campina Grande Airport – Presidente João Suassuna underwent improvements, with the reconstruction and complementary reinforcement of the landing and takeoff runway and the aircraft parking lot. The major renovation, however, took place in 2003, when the unit was reopened and became the first in Brazil to have a universal standard signaling model. In 2011, new investments in the Fire Fighting Section raised the airport to category 6, enabling the operation of larger aircraft.
Currently, the airport unit is undergoing a modernization process, which began with the management of Aena Brasil, part of the Spanish company Aena, considered the largest airport operator in the world in terms of number of passengers. In Brazil, the concessionaire manages 17 terminals. In the six units in the Northeast, — Recife (PE), Maceió (AL), João Pessoa (PB), Aracaju (SE), Juazeiro do Norte (CE) and Campina Grande (PB) — the company is investing R$1.4 billion in structural works, focusing to increase airport capacity by between 60% and 100%.