Rafael Núñez International Airport (CTG), Cartagena: The Complete Guide

Rafael Núñez is the only major airport in Colombia that sits inside the city it serves. It is in Crespo, on Calle 70, about ten minutes from the walled city and fifteen from the hotel zone. That single fact changes how you should plan your arrival, and it is the opposite of what people expect after flying into Bogotá or Medellín. This guide covers the terminal, what actually happens between the plane and the curb, every official way into town with the current 2026 fares, and the things that go wrong in December.

Verified September 2026 against the airport operator OINAC, Transcaribe and the Alcaldía de Cartagena, by the Safe Transfers Colombia team, who drive this airport daily.

The one Colombian airport that is actually in the city

Most arrival advice for Colombia is written around long airport drives. El Dorado is a highway run from central Bogotá. José María Córdova is not even in Medellín — it is in Rionegro, forty-five minutes over a mountain. Travellers arrive in Cartagena braced for the same thing and are surprised when the drive is over before they have finished looking at their phone.

The airport operator gives the two numbers plainly: about ten minutes to the Centro Histórico and the Convention Centre, about fifteen to the hotel zone. The terminal is on Calle 70 in Crespo, a residential and hotel neighbourhood on the north side of the city, with the sea on one side and the Ciénaga de la Virgen behind it. Aircraft come in low over the water and over rooftops, which is the first thing most people photograph.

Three practical consequences follow, and they are worth planning around:

• A late arrival is not a problem the way it is elsewhere. Landing at 23:00 in Cartagena means being at your hotel before midnight. The same arrival time into Rionegro means a mountain road in the dark.
• The value of a private transfer here is not the distance, it is the arrival hall. Ten minutes of driving is ten minutes of driving. What you are actually buying is not standing in a queue with your luggage at the exit of a small terminal that handled nearly eight million people last year.
• A long layover is usable. With five or six hours between flights you can genuinely go into the walled city, eat, and come back. That is not true at any other major Colombian airport.

Map: where the airport sits

Look at how close the runway is to the water on both sides. The airport occupies a strip between the Caribbean and the Ciénaga de la Virgen, with Crespo wrapped around it. The Centro Histórico is the walled shape to the south-west; Bocagrande is the peninsula beyond it. Everything in this guide happens inside a few kilometres.

The terminal, end to end

Rafael Núñez has one passenger terminal. There is no shuttle between buildings, no train, and nothing you can get lost in for long — which is the good news. The bad news is that a single terminal built for a smaller airport now handles close to eight million passengers a year, and at peak hours it feels exactly like that.

The layout you need to hold in your head is simple. Departures and arrivals are separated, and within each, domestic and international are separated. That gives four places a person can be, and the mistake that costs people time is being met at the wrong one.

Two details are worth knowing before you land.

• There are two authorised taxi stands, not one. The airport operates them at the domestic and the international exits. If you walk out of the wrong door looking for a taxi rank, you will find one anyway — but if somebody is meeting you, the door matters.
• The domestic and international exits are separate curbs. Tell whoever is collecting you which one you are on. Every wasted twenty minutes at this airport is somebody standing at the other door.

Airlines and where they fly

Cartagena is a leisure airport with an unusually international mix for its size. Of the 7,756,298 passengers who used it in 2025, 1,752,903 were international — well over a fifth, which is a higher share than most Colombian airports outside Bogotá.

The shape of the traffic, as reported for 2025:

• Domestic. Bogotá is the dominant route, with Medellín and the other main Colombian cities behind it. Domestic traffic grew about 2.8 per cent over 2024.
• United States. Miami, Fort Lauderdale and New York carry the heaviest international volume.
• Panama City. The connecting hub that puts most of the Americas within one stop of Cartagena.
• Madrid. The direct transatlantic link to Europe.
• Canada. Toronto and Montreal, seasonal, concentrated in the northern winter.

International traffic grew about 4.9 per cent in 2025, faster than domestic. December is the peak month by a distance: 705,858 passengers passed through in December 2025 alone, 537,465 of them domestic.

Check your specific airline and route on the airport’s own flights page rather than a third-party aggregator, because seasonal routes here appear and disappear with the northern winter.

From landing to the curb

What actually happens, in order:

1. Disembark. The terminal has both jet bridges and remote stands. On a remote stand you walk or take a bus across the apron, which in Cartagena means walking outside in Caribbean heat and humidity. Do not put your only jumper in the hold in December thinking you will need it — you will want the opposite.
2. Immigration, international arrivals only. Migración Colombia processes every non-domestic arrival. This is the single longest step and the one that varies most: a quiet Tuesday afternoon is quick, and three wide-bodies landing together is not.
3. Baggage. One hall. Carousels are close together and it is obvious which one is yours.
4. Customs. Random selection for screening after baggage on international arrivals.
5. The exit. You come out into a crowded arrivals frontage. This is the moment the airport feels small: taxi touts, hotel signs, families, and drivers holding names, all in a compact space.

The official ways into town, and exactly where they are

There are four, and only four, ways to leave Rafael Núñez by road:

• Authorised taxi. Two stands operated by the airport, one at the domestic exit and one at the international exit. Fares follow a published zone table.
• Private transfer booked in advance. Your driver is inside or at the exit with your name, the price is fixed before you land, and the vehicle is assigned to you.
• Transcaribe, the city’s mass transit system. The T102 trunk route runs through Crespo, about one street from the terminal.
• Rental car. MM Rentals operates from the external domestic arrivals zone, Monday to Friday 06:00 to 21:30 and weekends and holidays 08:00 to 17:00.

Ride-hailing apps operate in Cartagena as they do elsewhere in Colombia, but the airport’s own transport page does not list them as an airport service, and pickup arrangements at the terminal are informal. If you use one, expect to walk and to co-ordinate by phone rather than to be collected at the door.

Taxis: the zone system, and the tariff file that is out of date

Taxis from Rafael Núñez do not run on the meter. They run on a zone table: the city is divided into numbered zones and each zone has a fixed price from the airport. This is a good system, and it is the reason airport taxis in Cartagena are less fraught than in a lot of Latin American cities. Know your zone before you get in and there is very little to argue about.

The zones that matter to most visitors:

Note where the walled city falls. The Centro Histórico and Getsemaní are in the cheapest band, because they are the closest. Bocagrande, the beach hotel strip, sits two bands higher — not because it is far, but because the route runs around the bay.

Two more habits worth having. Take the taxi from the authorised stand rather than from someone who approaches you inside the terminal. And if you are arriving between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m., expect the night surcharge on top of the zone fare — it is legitimate, it is set by decree, and it is small.

Transcaribe: the bus one street from the terminal

Almost no visitor to Cartagena knows this exists, and for a certain kind of traveller it is the best-value ride in the city.

Transcaribe is Cartagena’s mass transit system, and the T102 Portal – Crespo trunk route runs through the airport’s own neighbourhood. The nearest stops are roughly one street from the terminal, around Iglesia Cristo Rey and Carrera 6 in Crespo. You walk out of arrivals, cross to the main road, and you are at a bus stop.

• Fare. $3.900 COP per journey, set by Decreto 017 of 15 January 2026 and in force since 23 January 2026. That is a single flat fare across the whole system.
• How you pay. A rechargeable Transcaribe card, bought and topped up at any station. You cannot pay the driver in cash.
• The other route. C017 Bodeguita – Zona Norte also passes through, but on a limited weekday-only schedule, and its return routing makes it poor for reaching the airport.

Be honest with yourself about whether it suits you. With one small bag, arriving in daylight, wanting to see how the city actually moves, it is excellent. With two suitcases, a child, a 1 a.m. arrival, or a hotel in Bocagrande that needs a connection, it is a false economy — you are saving the price of a coffee and spending an hour.

Getting to the walled city, Bocagrande, La Boquilla and Barú

Centro Histórico and Getsemaní. Ten minutes, and the cheapest taxi zone. This is the shortest airport-to-old-town run of any major city in Colombia. Note that vehicle access inside the walls is restricted on some streets and around events, so a driver may stop at the nearest gate rather than at your door — that is normal, and it is a two-minute walk.

Bocagrande, Castillogrande and El Laguito. About fifteen minutes, in the higher zone band. The road runs down past the Centro de Convenciones and around the bay.

Manga. Its own zone, ten to fifteen minutes, over the bridges south of the old town.

La Boquilla, Zona Norte and the Los Morros corridor. North along the coast road, in the same direction the airport already faces, so it is quick — this is one of the few destinations where you are driving away from the city rather than through it.

Barú, Playa Blanca and the Karibana corridor. Well outside the zone table’s normal range and priced accordingly. Barú in particular is an hour or more, and the last stretch is not a road you want to negotiate for the first time at night with a driver you met three minutes ago. Book this one in advance.

Santa Marta and Barranquilla. Intercity, four hours and two hours respectively, along the coastal road. These are transfers, not taxi rides.

December, cruise days and the crush

Rafael Núñez handled 705,858 passengers in December 2025. Spread evenly that is roughly 22,700 people a day through one terminal, and it is not spread evenly — it clusters around the morning and evening banks of flights.

What that means in practice, from mid-December to mid-January and again in Holy Week:

• The arrivals frontage is genuinely crowded. Finding one person in it is harder than you expect. Agree a specific meeting point in advance, not “outside arrivals”.
• The taxi queue at the stand can run twenty minutes or more when several flights land together, before you have moved a metre.
• Departure needs more margin than the terminal size suggests. A small airport at capacity queues at check-in, at security and at immigration all at once.

Outside those windows, and outside the daily peaks, this is a quick and pleasant airport. The difference between the two experiences is larger here than at a big terminal with room to absorb a surge.

Departing from Rafael Núñez

• How early. Two hours for a domestic flight, three for international, and add an hour in the December and Holy Week peaks. Being early at this airport costs you very little — it is ten minutes from town, and there are places to sit.
• Check-in and bag drop. Domestic and international check-in areas are separate. Have your boarding pass on your phone; the queues that move are the bag-drop ones.
• Security. Standard. Liquids rules as everywhere.
• Emigration, international only. Migración Colombia stamps you out. Colombia does not charge a departure tax at the airport for ordinary tourist stays — it is built into the ticket.
• What to do with a beach afternoon before an evening flight. Because the airport is in the city, you can check out of your hotel, spend the afternoon at the beach in Crespo or Marbella, rinse off, and still be at the terminal in ten minutes. Very few airports allow that.

Parking and car rental

Parking is directly in front of the terminal, operated by Parqueaderos de la Costa. Published rates are $11.000 COP per hour and $88.000 COP for 24 hours, on +57 (5) 658 0949.

Do the arithmetic before leaving a car there for a trip: a week is around $616.000 COP, which is more than most people would pay for two transfers plus a taxi. For anything longer than a day, being dropped off is the cheaper answer.

Car rental at the airport is MM Rentals, in the external domestic arrivals zone, open Monday to Friday 06:00 to 21:30 and Saturdays, Sundays and holidays 08:00 to 17:00. Note those closing times against your arrival: a flight landing at 22:00 on a Saturday lands after the rental desk has shut.

Whether you want a car at all in Cartagena is a fair question. The old town is walkable and partly closed to traffic, parking in Bocagrande is difficult, and the drive to Barú is the only trip most visitors make that a car really helps with. A lot of people rent one and then leave it parked.

Lounges, shops and services inside the terminal

The airport publishes the following passenger services:

• VIP lounges. The international VIP lounge was recently renovated. Access is by airline status, card programme or paid entry, depending on the lounge.
• Shops and restaurants. Present on both the domestic and international sides, and heavily concentrated after security rather than before it.
• ATMs and currency exchange. Both available in the terminal. Withdraw pesos at an ATM rather than changing money at the airport counter if you can — the rate is usually better, and you will want cash in pesos for taxis and vendors.
• Airport medical services. On site.
• Ground assistance for passengers who need help moving through the terminal.
• Lost property. Handled by the airport; contact the call centre on +57 (605) 693 1351 extension 2747.
• Travel agency and hotel booking desks in the terminal.

This is a compact airport. Do not plan a long meal on the airside of a domestic departure — plan it in the city, ten minutes away, and come in later.

Staying in Crespo, the airport’s own neighbourhood

Because the terminal sits inside a residential neighbourhood rather than in a field, the “airport hotels” in Cartagena are simply hotels in Crespo, and some of them are close enough that you could walk if you travelled light. Crespo has its own beach, which is quieter and more local than Bocagrande, and it is a normal Cartagena neighbourhood rather than a hotel strip.

It is worth considering in three cases: a 5 a.m. departure, an overnight connection, or a short first night before moving on to Barú or Santa Marta in the morning. For a whole holiday, most people would rather be inside the walls or on the beach at Bocagrande — but for a night either side of a flight, Crespo is the sensible and often cheaper answer.

One caveat, and it is the obvious one: you are under the approach path. Aircraft come in low. Ask for a room away from the runway side if you are a light sleeper.

Flights and flight status

The airport publishes live arrivals and departures on its own flights page, and that is the figure to trust over an aggregator when a flight is delayed. The airport also runs a call centre on +57 (605) 693 1351, extension 2747.

Two things about flight status here specifically. Cartagena is at sea level on the Caribbean coast, so it does not suffer the fog delays that close José María Córdova in Medellín — the weather risk is tropical rain and, in season, storms out over the water. And because so much of the traffic connects through Bogotá or Panama City, a delay upstream at either of those hubs shows up in Cartagena an hour later. If your inbound is coming from El Dorado, watch El Dorado.

Colombia’s other airports

If Cartagena is one stop on a longer trip, these are the other airports you are likely to use, and we cover transfers at all of them:

• Bogotá — El Dorado (BOG). The country’s main hub, and the connection point for most of Colombia. See the El Dorado airport guide and Bogotá transfers.
• Medellín — José María Córdova (MDE). In Rionegro, not in Medellín, and about forty-five minutes away over the mountain. See the Medellín airport guide and Medellín transfers.
• Santa Marta — Simón Bolívar (SMR). Four hours east along the coast from Cartagena. Santa Marta transfers.
• Barranquilla — Ernesto Cortissoz (BAQ). Two hours east, and the airport is actually in Soledad. Barranquilla transfers.
• Cali — Alfonso Bonilla Aragón (CLO). In Palmira, not Cali. Cali transfers.

The full list, with the IATA code and the municipality each airport is really in, is on our airports in Colombia page.

Questions travellers ask about Cartagena airport

How far is Cartagena airport from the old town?

About ten minutes by road. The airport operator gives ten minutes to the Centro Histórico and the Convention Centre, and about fifteen to the hotel zone. Rafael Núñez is inside the city, in the Crespo neighbourhood on Calle 70, which makes it the shortest airport-to-centre run of any major Colombian city.

How much is a taxi from Cartagena airport to Bocagrande?

Bocagrande, Castillogrande and El Laguito sit in zone 5 of the airport’s fixed-price zone table, two bands above the walled city. The exact peso figure moves each year with the district’s taxi decree — the 2026 decree set the city minimum fare at $12.250 COP with a $1.100 night surcharge from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. — and the tariff file currently linked from the airport’s own site is several years old. Ask at the authorised taxi stand for the current zone price before you load your bags.

Is there a bus from Cartagena airport to the city?

Yes. The Transcaribe T102 Portal – Crespo trunk route runs about one street from the terminal, with stops near Iglesia Cristo Rey and Carrera 6. The fare is $3.900 COP, set by Decreto 017 of January 2026, and you need a rechargeable Transcaribe card — you cannot pay cash on board. It is a good option with light luggage in daylight and a poor one with suitcases at midnight.

Which terminal does Cartagena airport use?

There is one passenger terminal. Inside it, domestic and international are separated for both departures and arrivals, and there are two authorised taxi stands, one at each arrivals exit. If someone is meeting you, tell them whether you are arriving domestic or international.

Is Cartagena airport open 24 hours?

The terminal operates around the clock; the administrative offices are open Monday to Friday from 07:00 to 16:00. Note that the airport car rental desk closes in the evening, at 21:30 on weekdays and 17:00 at weekends and on holidays.

How busy is Cartagena airport?

It handled 7,756,298 passengers in 2025, a record, of which 1,752,903 were international. December is the peak by a wide margin, with 705,858 passengers in that month alone. In a single terminal, that is felt.

Do I need to book a transfer in advance?

Not for a short daytime run to the old town, where the authorised taxi stand works well. Book ahead when you are arriving late, arriving in the December or Holy Week peak, travelling with children or a lot of luggage, or heading somewhere outside the zone table such as Barú or the Karibana corridor.

Sources: Aeropuerto Internacional Rafael Núñez and its operator OINAC — Operadora Internacional Aeropuerto Cartagena S.A.S. (official site: location and distances, terminal and taxi stands, parking rates and operator, car rental hours, passenger services, contact details, and the airport taxi tariff table). Transcaribe S.A. (official site: the $3.900 fare set by Decreto 017 of 15 January 2026, in force from 23 January 2026, and the current route list including T102). Alcaldía Mayor de Cartagena de Indias (district taxi decrees). Passenger figures for 2025 as reported by El Tiempo, a newspaper rather than a primary statistical source; the 2026 district taxi fare of $12.250 and the $1.100 night surcharge as reported by El Universal, also a newspaper. Transcaribe route detail around the airport from El Universal’s November 2024 practical guide, again non-authoritative and subject to schedule changes. Runway, elevation and concession details from publicly available aviation references. Timings, queue behaviour and pickup practice are from the Safe Transfers Colombia team, who work this airport daily. Fares and hours change: confirm the current figure at the authorised taxi stand and on the airport’s own site before you travel.