Brazil: a hypothetical future state
3,457 airports assessed. 343 have no tower and meet a tier 1 to 3 rule (22 / 35 / 286). 42 towered airports fit tiers 1 to 3. A hypothetical set of 25 centres covers them. 1 public traffic source loaded.
Orange, teal, pink and grey dots are suggested tiers. Hollow rings are towered airports that fit a tier. White-ringed orange dots are hypothetical centres. Green outlined dots are remote or digital towers already listed on this site. Basemap: OpenStreetMap data via Protomaps.
What it could enable
- Service where there is none. 343 airports have no tower but meet a traffic or infrastructure rule. Remote service could give them separation or advisory service they cannot justify as a conventional tower. About 51.8 million people live within 50 km of one of them and of no towered airport.
- Fewer, shared positions. 42 towered airports fit tiers 1 to 3. Serving some of them from 25 shared centres could change how towers are staffed, equipped and replaced when they age.
- Different working pattern. A centre of about 15.4 airports lets part-time airports share a controller across the day, and lets busy periods at different airports fall on different positions.
- Awareness for isolated fields. 311 isolated airfields could get surface awareness (cameras and surveillance) without any air traffic service.
The gap in numbers
| Tier | No tower today | Towered today |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1: Full remote tower service | 22 | 31 |
| Tier 2: Part-time remote tower | 35 | 6 |
| Tier 3: Remote advisory (AFIS-like) | 286 | 5 |
| Tier 4: Surface awareness only | 311 | n/a |
| Large hub, left alone | n/a | 13 |
- Traffic on gap airports
- 10.9 million passengers (111 airports with a figure)
- Population
- 212.0 million (World Bank 2024)
- People in cities of 15,000+
- 200.4 million
- Within 50 km of a gap airport
- 107.9 million
- ... and of no towered airport
- 51.8 million
- Near only an isolated airfield
- 4.8 million
- Airports with air-ground service already
- 64 of the gap airports have an AFIS-type frequency listed
Candidate airports
| Airport | Tier | Class | Passengers | Movements | Centre |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aracaju - Santa Maria Airport SBAR · Aracaju | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 1,360,148 | n/a | |
| Prof. Eribelto Manoel Reino State Airport SBSR · São José do Rio Preto | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 919,451 | n/a | |
| Serafin Enoss Bertaso Airport SBCH · Chapecó | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 643,327 | n/a | |
| Bahia - Jorge Amado Airport SBIL · Ilhéus | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 626,068 | n/a | |
| Lauro Carneiro de Loyola Airport SBJV · Joinville | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 535,930 | n/a | |
| Orlando Bezerra de Menezes Airport SBJU · Juazeiro do Norte | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 496,686 | n/a | |
| Senador Nilo Coelho Airport SBPL · Petrolina | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 482,991 | n/a | |
| Coronel Adalberto Mendes da Silva Airport SBCA · Cascavel | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 464,157 | n/a | |
| Presidente João Batista Figueiredo Airport SBSI · Sinop | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 462,238 | n/a | |
| Glauber de Andrade Rocha Airport SBVC · Vitória da Conquista | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 398,554 | n/a | |
| João Correa da Rocha Airport SBMA · Marabá | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 380,016 | n/a | |
| Fernando de Noronha Airport SBFN · Fernando de Noronha | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 376,836 | n/a | |
| Mário Ribeiro Airport SBMK · Montes Claros | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 354,021 | n/a | |
| Prefeito Renato Moreira Airport SBIZ · Imperatriz | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 333,771 | n/a | |
| Hugo Cantergiani Regional Airport SBCX · Caxias Do Sul | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 278,336 | n/a |
Hypothetical centres
| Centre site | Airports | Tier 1 / 2 / 3 | Farthest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campo Fontenelle Existing staffed tower facility | 61 | 5 / 4 / 52 | 288 km |
| Regional de Maringá - Sílvio Name Júnior Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 49 | 9 / 4 / 36 | 446 km |
| Tancredo Neves International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 44 | 7 / 6 / 31 | 492 km |
| Deputado Luiz Eduardo Magalhães International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 33 | 6 / 3 / 24 | 500 km |
| Porto Alegre-Salgado Filho International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 22 | 4 / 4 / 14 | 495 km |
| Várzea Grande–Marechal Rondon International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 29 | 2 / 3 / 24 | 483 km |
| Marechal Cunha Machado International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 20 | 5 / 1 / 14 | 491 km |
| Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 31 | 1 / 1 / 29 | 496 km |
| Rio Grande do Norte/São Gonçalo do Amarante–Governador Aluízio Alves International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 19 | 5 / 0 / 14 | 487 km |
| Santarém - Maestro Wilson Fonseca International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 15 | 2 / 3 / 10 | 497 km |
| Governador Jorge Teixeira de Oliveira International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 14 | 2 / 3 / 9 | 457 km |
| Brigadeiro Lysias Rodrigues Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 11 | 2 / 1 / 8 | 498 km |
| Eduardo Gomes International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 4 | 1 / 0 / 3 | 392 km |
| Val de Cans/Júlio Cezar Ribeiro International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 5 | 1 / 0 / 4 | 481 km |
| Atlas Brasil Cantanhede International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 1 | 1 / 0 / 0 | 0 km |
| Campo Grande Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 3 | 0 / 1 / 2 | 292 km |
| Senador Petrônio Portela Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 5 | 0 / 0 / 5 | 496 km |
| Porto Seguro International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 1 | 0 / 0 / 1 | 136 km |
| Santa Maria Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 1 | 0 / 1 / 0 | 324 km |
| Rio Branco-Plácido de Castro International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 1 | 0 / 0 / 1 | 420 km |
| Juína Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 4 | 0 / 2 / 2 | 432 km |
| Tefé Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 4 | 0 / 2 / 2 | 439 km |
| Barra Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 5 | 0 / 0 / 5 | 244 km |
| Cruzeiro do Sul Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 2 | 0 / 2 / 0 | 486 km |
| São Félix do Xingu Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 1 | 0 / 0 / 1 | 0 km |
Responsible implementation
A tier on this page is a starting question. These are the topics any real plan would need to answer. Public guidance:
- EASA ED Decision 2023/005/R, guidance material on remote aerodrome air traffic services
- UK CAA: remote aerodrome air traffic services (CAP 670 and approval policy)
- EUROCAE ED-240A, minimum performance standards for remote tower optical systems
- FAA Digital Tower Systems page
- FAA AIP Program Guidance Letter 26-06 (design approval is not operational approval)
- ICAO Doc 4444, PANS-ATM, the procedures that remote services must still meet
Safety case and regulator approval
Each service needs its own safety case and approval before it carries traffic. A design approval for equipment is a different step from permission to run a service. This site's records name no regulator for Brazil yet; the national supervisory authority would decide.
Controller workforce and training
Remote work changes the job: new displays, new failure modes, and new competence checks. A plan would cover who moves, who trains, how existing controllers choose, and what happens to current staff and their conditions.
Communications and surveillance
Radio, video and surveillance links must meet the latency and quality the safety case assumes. Tier 1 and 2 airports need reliable cameras, redundant links and a surveillance picture for traffic that radar or ADS-B cannot see from the ground.
Contingency and redundancy
Every centre needs a fallback: a second path for data, a backup position, and a rule for what the airport does when a link fails (hold, divert, revert to advisory). Centres that serve many airports need a plan for losing all of them at once.
Cybersecurity
A centre is a single high-value target. It needs the same protections as other air traffic systems: segmented networks, supply-chain checks, logging, and tested recovery.
Community and labour engagement
Airports, airlines, pilots, unions, local governments and neighbours should be in the process before decisions, not after. Jobs can move away from small airports, and that is a real cost to a community.
Sources
- OurAirports: airports, runways, frequencies.
- GeoNames cities of 15,000 or more; World Bank population.
- ANAC air transport statistics (Dados Estatisticos do Transporte Aereo), paid plus free passengers by origin and destination airport, 2025
Towers already listed for Brazil: remote and digital sites in Brazil.