Colombia is on course to expand and upgrade more than 50 airports with an investment of US$2.9 billion, as the country experiences a sharp surge in air passengers, including foreign tourists.

Over the coming months, Bogota’s El Dorado airport, Jose Maria Cordova in Medellin, Barranquilla’s Aerodrome, and Cartagena’s Rafael Nuñez Airport, will undergo expansion, according to Spansh publication El Tiempo.

The report comes on the back of the country’s peace deal with FARC rebels, who have now agreed to lay down their arms. According to airlines news portal Anna.aero, the number of air passengers in Colombia increased to 37.3 million last year from 22.9 million in 2010.

For the first half of 2016, Colombia welcomed 18.8 million passengers, a rise of 7.4% when compared to the same six months of 2015. Air travel is becoming so common that major airports such as Rafael Nuñez and that of San Andres Island are seeing as much as 16% surge in passenger traffic.

During the first four months of this year, the country’s ten busiest airports handled 1.6 million more passengers than they did during the same period last year.

Construction work to expand Bogota’s El Dorado Airport, Latin America’s third largest airport in terms of passenger traffic, has already gotten underway. Authorities say they will expand the main terminal building by 38% to 239,100 square meters.

With the number of passengers using Colombia’s airports set to increase by 5-7% over the next decade, plans are now in place to build a second airport dubbed “El Dorado II” in Bogota.

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