Colombia’s national government will have concessionaire Airplan build a new passenger terminal at José María Córdova International Airport in Rionegro, Antioquia, the airport that serves Medellín, while planning for a long-sought second runway moves to a land-purchase strategy with regional governments. Minister of Transport Elsa Noguera, a member of President Abelardo de la Espriella’s cabinet, outlined the plan during a political-control debate before the Comisión Sexta de la Cámara de Representantes (Sixth Committee of the House of Representatives), according to Valora Analitik, which reported her remarks on September 22, 2026.

Noguera said the airport’s existing runway still has the technical capacity to handle up to 37 million passengers a year, and that the immediate work will focus on the passenger building. “A new terminal for 20 million more passengers is required, with a single runway. The great pain of the paisas is that they already want to think about their second runway, because today they don’t have one, because it costs a lot,” she said, referring to the people of Antioquia. Valora Analitik reported that the new building is needed to lift the airport’s capacity above 17 million passengers a year.

The new terminal fits inside the existing contract

Noguera told the committee that Airplan’s current concession contract has room to absorb the terminal project, leaving only the building’s siting to be negotiated between the government and the concessionaire.

“Now, whether it will be built alongside or in front is something we will have to reconcile, but the good news is that the concession has room to build it.”

— Elsa Noguera, Minister of Transport of Colombia

That contract runs until 2032, according to a March 2026 release from the Ministerio de Transporte (Ministry of Transport). Noguera said the current concession will not be able to build the second runway. Instead, the national government will plan it together with the Gobernación de Antioquia (Antioquia Governor’s Office) and other territorial governments.

Land first, then a price freeze

Noguera said the Aeronáutica Civil (Civil Aviation Authority, known as Aerocivil) had previously issued an administrative act declaring the surrounding land of strategic importance in order to contain land prices, but that the measure collapsed because no funds were available to acquire the property. She described the message she sent to local governments: “(We are asking that) they start buying, and we will once again issue the administrative act that declares the strategic importance and freezes prices in the surrounding area, so that in the future they can have it.”

A master plan to 2055, with its studies under legal reserve

Aerocivil approved an update of the Plan Maestro Aeroportuario (Airport Master Plan) for José María Córdova through Resolution 01699 of May 26, 2026, signed by Acting Director General Luis Alfonso Martínez Chimenty and announced by the authority on August 4, 2026. The plan sets a 30-year roadmap and replaces the previous update, approved by Resolution 2487 of August 25, 2016.

According to Aerocivil, the plan rests on prefeasibility studies for the airport’s maximum expansion, feasibility studies for the first investment phase (known as PAL 1), and a feasibility study for a second runway covering the 2025–2030 and 2030–2035 periods. The technical consultancy was performed by Consorcio Aeropuerto Rionegro 30 and supervised by Consorcio INT PM Rionegro. Article 5 of the resolution directs the Ministry of Transport, the Agencia Nacional de Infraestructura (National Infrastructure Agency, ANI), the Instituto Nacional de Vías (National Roads Institute, Invías), the Antioquia Governor’s Office, and the mayors’ offices and planning departments of the Alcaldía de Rionegro (Rionegro Mayor’s Office) and the Alcaldía de Medellín (Medellín Mayor’s Office), among others, to align their land-use plans with the master plan, as required under Ley 388 de 1997 (Law 388 of 1997).

Aerocivil also stated that the plan is a guiding framework only, and that the execution of specific works and the allocation of budgets will each require separate legal authorizations. The authority placed the plan’s technical, financial, design and land studies under legal reserve, citing national security, aviation operational safety and the protection of critical state infrastructure.

Figures from the consulting consortium’s prefeasibility analysis and financial scheme, reported by Portafolio, put total investment at $22 trillion COP in constant 2024 pesos: 29% in a first phase through 2030, 49% in a second stage, 13% in a third stage through 2055, and 9% for land purchases and environmental management in the initial stage. The plan projects passenger traffic rising from 14 million in 2025 to 42.7 million in 2055, and air cargo from 119,000 tons to 202,900 tons a year. In the plan’s evaluation of how to deliver the second runway, a new public-private partnership concession scored 4.9 points against 4.7 for keeping the work inside Airplan’s current contract, according to Portafolio, with the transfer of risk to the contractor carrying the heaviest weight.

Stalled, then approved, then left out

In May 2025, Finance Colombia reported that the administration of former President Gustavo Petro had allocated funds only for the first stage of the master plan, and not for that stage’s land purchases, with Vice Minister of Infrastructure Liliana María Ospina stating that the second-runway phase “exceeds the current administration’s budgetary planning.” In July 2025, Finance Colombia reported that the Medellín Mayor’s Office said the national government had not formally responded to Mayor Federico Gutiérrez’s repeated requests for more immigration staff at the airport, or to the city’s offer of personnel and logistical support, as travelers reported immigration waits of up to six hours.

Near-term works also waited on the Petro government, and it ultimately cleared them. The contract amendment covering the works, otrosí 27, had been awaiting the signature of ANI’s vice president for contract management since December 2025, and the Ministry of Transport supplied the missing sign-off on March 26, 2026, according to El Tiempo. The same day, the ministry and ANI announced a $167 billion COP program for six airports in the country’s center-north: Rionegro, Medellín, Montería, Carepa, Quibdó and Corozal. The ministry said the works would be carried out by the concessionaire “without modifying the current contract,” and that Rionegro, which handles about 14 million passengers a year against an installed capacity of 11 million, would be expanded to 17 million. “More and more Colombians are flying, and our infrastructure has to be up to that reality,” then-Minister of Transport María Fernanda Rojas said in the release.

The ministry started construction on April 24, 2026. The works include a remote boarding lounge with six gates, new aircraft stands, additional check-in positions and security lanes, and upgrades to baggage handling and immigration, with the goal of raising capacity to 28 operations per hour. The project had reached 24% completion by mid-September, Infobae reported, citing ANI.

In July 2026, however, José María Córdova was left out of Conpes 4205, the national airport-investment policy document of the Consejo Nacional de Política Económica y Social (National Council for Economic and Social Policy), which El Tiempo reported commits $6.54 trillion COP through 2035 to airports not under concession. In a response reported by Blu Radio, Aerocivil said the airport was excluded because, under its concession, “the obligations for maintenance, improvement and expansion of the airport infrastructure are the contractual responsibility of the concessionaire, financed with its own resources or through the remuneration mechanisms provided for in that contract.” Blu Radio reported that Medellín’s Olaya Herrera airport is also absent from the document, and that the Ernesto Cortissoz airport in Atlántico and the Alfonso Bonilla Aragón airport were not prioritized either. Concejo de Medellín (Medellín City Council) President Alejandro De Bedout called the exclusion “a political decision,” Blu Radio reported.

Noguera has placed the second runway outside the current concession and has asked local governments to begin buying the land around the airport. Aerocivil’s feasibility study for the runway covers 2025 through 2035, and the authority states that budgets for the master plan’s works still require separate authorization. Airplan’s contract expires in 2032.

Headline photo: The passenger terminal and apron at José María Córdova International Airport in Rionegro, Antioquia. (Photo courtesy Aerocivil)