By Mike Arnot, Juliett Alpha Media
Mariscal Sucre International Airport had the best operational performance in 2023 among the world’s small airports. Located near Quito, Ecuador, the airport is referred to as Tababela, and is relatively new — it opened in 2012. It’s Ecuador’s largest airport. The two largest carriers there are Avianca and LATAM, each flying around 1M seats in 2023, with Avianca flying around 43% more seats from there since 2019.
Mariscal Sucre beat out Chubu Centrair, the Japanese single runway operation just outside of Nagoya, Japan. ANA is the largest carrier there, whose strong on-time performance factors into both that carrier and this airport’s excellence.
2023’s results are an excellent result for these Ecuadorian airports.
The top three small airports are rounded out by José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport, serving Guayaquil, Ecuador, and Ecuador’s second largest airport, after Mariscal Sucre. 2023’s results are an excellent result for these Ecuadorian airports. Cirium categorizes airports by percentile, and a small airport serves between the 25th and 50th percentile by total flights served in a month, with an actual gate departure coverage 80% or better.
