PUNTA CANA. – Punta Cana International Airport (PUJ) announced the opening of the Terminal B extension in the summer of 2023, a project with an investment cost of USD$80 million, with the capacity to handle 3 million passengers.
It will have an area of about 35,000 m² and will have seven boarding gates and seven air bridges, and its expansion is in the hands of local architects and engineers.
The information was released during the 23rd edition of the Dominican Annual Tourism Exchange 2023 (DATE) of the Dominican Republic Hotel and Tourism Association (ASONAHORES), where the installation of new technological equipment to improve security and the passenger experience was also announced.
“In recent years, Punta Cana International Airport has experienced considerable growth in its operations, making it the busiest airport in the Dominican Republic in terms of passenger traffic. This has required upgrades to the infrastructure and technological equipment to facilitate aviation security processes, optimizing safety outcomes and improving the efficiency of these processes,” explained Alberto Smith, Director of Operations at Landside.
He explained that the technological advances have been the result of the joint work of the Puntacana Group and the Specialized Corps in Airport and Civil Aviation Security (CESAC), in close collaboration and coordination through studies, planning and design of the structures of the new facilities and the acquisition of technological security equipment.
According to a statement from the Punta Cana Group, some of the new technological implementations are smart path – biometrics for check-in procedures without agent assistance, self-service kiosks and mobile technology with quick and secure biometric registration, self-service baggage drop-off with biometric verification, single or double electronic self-service boarding gates, access control to secure areas and automated border control.
In addition, there are new self check-in kiosks with baggage tag printing, an Explosive Detection System (EDS) at the security checkpoint and baggage carousel, new security screens, auto-gates, self-service boarding, ABC kiosks in the arrival immigration area, and self-service bag drop will be implemented soon.
This year, Punta Cana International Airport was awarded for the seventh consecutive year as the “Best Airport by Size and Region” in the category of 5 to 15 million passengers in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Opened in 1983, it is the world's first privately owned airport for international commercial use, the busiest in the Dominican Republic and the most connected in the Caribbean, linking 64 cities and 26 countries around the world, moving eight million passengers a year.
It has two runways, 27 boarding gates, 30 aircraft parking positions, and three VIP lounges. It also has its own Recycling and Incineration Center, where 60% of the waste it generates is recycled.
