A Record-Setting Airport Opens in Brazil

February 19, 1973

Boa Vista International Airport in Brazil was opened. This airport serves Boa Vista, the capital of the northern Brazilian state of Roraima. Boa Vista is also the only state capital in Brazil that is located entirely north of the equator. The airport has the distinction of being the northernmost Brazilian airport that handles scheduled flights. 

The opening of this airport took place at a time when the government of Roraima was focused on improving transportation linkages to further reduce the region’s longstanding physical isolation from the outside world. Another key example of these efforts occurred just a couple of months before the airport’s debut, when a major road linking Boa Vista with the city of Santa Elena de Uairén in the neighboring nation of Venezuela was opened. (That road has played an even larger logistical role in facilitating automotive travel between Roraima and Venezuela’s capital Caracas.) 

In 2009, the airport was officially renamed Boa Vista-Atlas Brasil Cantanhede International Airport. Atlas Brasil Cantanhede (1917-1973) was a pilot and public official who became a major aviation pioneer in Roraima during the 1950s.

Photo Credit: Jorge Andrade (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license at Creative Commons — Attribution 2.0 Generic — CC BY 2.0)

For more information on Boa Vista-Atlas Brasil Cantanhede International Airport, please check out Boa Vista International Airport – Wikipedia