Background
The Congonhas airport was inaugurated in 1936, and it is the second airport in traffic of Brazil. It is considered, with around 1.5 km2, the Country’s executive airport.

The name of the airport is a homage to Viscount of Congonhas do Campo, Lucas Antonio Monteiro de Barros (1823-1851), the first governor of the Province of Sao Paulo after the Independence of Brazil (1822).

 Congonhas is the name of a kind of mate very common in the state of Minas Gerais, in the region where is located Congonhas do Campo, birth city of Monteiro de Barros.

The area where Congonhas is located was chosen due to its natural conditions: visibility, drainage, empty and flat estate, which allowed for building four runways.

 The choice of the site also aimed at avoiding Tiete river flooding that flooded Campo de Marte. Additionally, at the time, it was far from urban downtown.

By end of the 1940s, the works for construction of three runways forecasted in the new airport project begun, but only its main runway was completed because technical studies showed as enough to meet North American Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) airport specifications, which was the state of art at the time.

 The runway was completed at the end of 1950, but during its construction, another provisional one was built. Many years afterwards, it became the second parallel runway, and it is kept until now.

The Authorities Pavilion was inaugurated in 1954 for boarding and disembarkation of authorities. This pavilion maintains until now several artistic elements, such as the mural of painter Di Cavalcante.

In the following year, the runways, maneuvering area, taxiways, the connections between runways 1 and 2, in addition to three connections between the ground area and runway 1 were completed, as well as paving of streets, parking lot, the square, the sidewalks, and external lighting.

Congonhas was already, since 1957, the world third airport in air cargo volume. Thus, at that time studies to implement a new airport in Sao Paulo began, along with changes in Congonhas’ Passenger Terminal. From these studies, the Viracopos Airport, in Campinas, emerged. At the same time, expansion of the Northern Wing of the Paulista airport was initiated to hold international boarding and disembarkation, and main runway rehabilitation.

The expansion project had been studied previously in 1955, but in the following years the head of the architecture department of the State of Sao Paulo Aeronautics Department (Daesp) did not advise on adopting this proposal, suggesting another one developed by Jacques Pilon’s architecture office and executed by Congel Construções Gerais Ltda. The expansion was completed in 1959, and it had a very generous budget.

Other general modifications took place during the 1960s at the airport outside the terminal. In 1968, aiming at providing guidelines for implementing a new airport infrastructure for commercial aviation, it was established the International Airport Project Coordinating Commission CCPAI), by the Air Force Ministry.

 This enabled fostering improvements, mostly at Passenger Terminal international wing. Among them, that which marked the scenario of Congonhas was the change of granilite floor at the international wing by black granite and white marble plates.

 This floor, which exists until now, incorporated in such manner to the building that it remained in people’s memory, becoming the airport visual identity.

By 1970, 350 daily flight operations were undertaken at Congonhas, involving 1,500 cars in the ground, 12,000 passengers and  25,000 companions. The outcome was total jam that required new expansions. In 1970, a major expansion works began at the Passenger Terminal international wing, with the same configuration as that undertaken in 1957/58. In addition, an expansion was done to shelter the new boarding gate and luggage clearance at the international wing.

The construction of domestic wing disembarkation building began in 1977, as complement to to Air Shuttle building. It was possible, with the assessment carried out by Terrafoto to get topographic records and analysis of the airport area deeds. This task was part of the inventory of assets, real estates, installations, and equipment, which due to Article 2 of Ordinance number 534/GM5, of May 25, 1977, from the Air Force Ministry stated that Congonhas should be Infraero’s responsibility and guard.

Thus, in 1981, the Airport administration became Infraero’s responsibility. Since then, expansions and rehabilitations were carried out, both in passenger terminal and in runways and ground areas, to increase the airport’s operational efficiency.

In 1982, the bus terminal was constructed to attend passenger boarding, via buses, to the Cumbica Airport. Rehabilitations gave new contours to the building, increasing its physical space, and providing more comfort and safety to users.

In 1990, Congonhas became the airport with the largest traffic in the country. Since then, passengers and airplanes flow increased systematically, which forced its rehabilitation to meet the demand increase.

In 1993, the visual programming project was undertaken, which included installing informative panels in which the fronts are displayed in the counters.

There was a retake on works of the parking building, in 2000, with participation of the Municipal public power that approved the project in December 2003, with approval license and execution of the new construction, published in July and issued in August 2004.

The parking building, inaugurated in December 2005, has 60 thousand square meters, five floors, three of them underground, and capacity for 2,550 covered parking slots and 800 in open sky, 3,350 in total, in relation to former 1,200 parking slots, all in covered area. Other major project was the adequacy and rehabilitation of the Passenger Terminal.The project comprised the construction of a connector with 12 boarding bridges to serve the new boarding and disembarkation areas.This project adapts Congonhas to the comfort and functionality levels required by current annual flow of around 14 million passengers.

The boarding lounges, at the mezzanine, are served with rolling stairs, elevators, WC, commercial areas, and VIP lounges. A large remote boarding lounge was installed in the ground floor with an interconnection of disembarkation and luggage area and the historical building.

ANAC withdrew, in 2008, the designation of "International", and the airport began to operate just domestic flights.

Currently, there is daily average of 537 operations, and at each semester, Congonhas receives around 7 million people.