Airport hub · EZE + AEP
Buenos Aires runs a two-airport split — Aeroparque (14.89M passengers in 2024, domestic and regional) and Ezeiza (11.08M, long-haul) — inside a country that smashed its all-time record with over 50 million passengers in 2025. January 2026 set another monthly record, with Argentina driving more than half of Corporación América’s group-wide growth.
Buenos Aires’ airport system works because the split is enforced: Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, ten minutes from Palermo on the riverfront, takes domestic and regional (14.89 million passengers in 2024, the country’s busiest); Ezeiza, 35 km southwest, takes everything intercontinental (11.08 million, +7%). The concessionaire, Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, runs both until 2038 against a 15% revenue fee and a $606.5 million capex commitment — Phase 1 delivered Ezeiza’s new departures terminal in April 2023; 2025 added the airport’s largest VIP lounge, a new duty-free arrivals area and Aeroparque’s apron expansions.
The corporate weather is unusually good. Corporación América Airports handled 86.7 million passengers group-wide in 2025 (+9.8%), and Argentina is the engine: +7.9% in January 2026 alone, an all-time monthly record, with international up 21.8%. The flag carrier has stopped bleeding — Aerolíneas posted a $112.7 million operating surplus in 2025, double 2024’s, with 12.78 million passengers, an 83% load factor and, for the first time since renationalization in 2008, zero state transfers. Its domestic share, though, slid from 62% to 58% as JetSMART (17 A321neos) and Flybondi press the low-cost flanks.
Open Skies is the experiment to watch. Sixty-three new connections launched in 2025 — seasonal beach routes to Florianópolis and Cabo Frio, JetSMART to Natal and Asunción, Flybondi’s Iguazú–Lima — and the exotic crown: China Eastern’s Ezeiza–Auckland–Shanghai, the world’s longest direct flight, which boarded 3,061 passengers at 61% load in its first month. Cargo followed passengers: exports +8% to 107,482 tons (American Airlines leading), imports +15%.
The risk is the mirror image of the tourism balance: the same strong peso that emptied inbound arrivals fills outbound cabins, and Argentines’ record travel abroad (+38.6% in 2025) is part of what these airports are processing. The privatization question hangs over both: the government has announced intentions for Aerolíneas, and the AA2000 concession’s economics — tariffs vs. capex vs. ORSNA review of 2022–2025 works still pending — will decide how much of the record gets reinvested. Watch the Ezeiza long-haul bank: if the China Eastern route and the European schedules hold through 2027, the two-airport model is validated; if inbound tourism keeps shrinking, Ezeiza becomes a very elegant departure lounge for Argentines leaving.
The TIO Read: Buenos Aires is the rare aviation market where the infrastructure story outruns the tourism story — record passengers, a profitable flag carrier and the world’s longest flight, all while foreign arrivals fall 20%. The reviewer’s call: fly into Aeroparque whenever a regional option exists (the riverfront approach past Puerto Madero is the finest urban arrival in South America), leave three hours for Ezeiza, and track the load factors on that Shanghai flight — it is the single best indicator of whether Argentina’s aviation bet is prescient or premature.
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