Challenging Airports - Cochabamba, Bolivia (SLCB)

In this instalment of the Challenging Airports series, we revisit the Cordillera Central of Bolivia to explore the high-altitude airport of Jorge Wilstermann, serving the city of Cochabamba. Known as the ‘city of eternal spring’ due to year-round, comfortable average daytime temperatures that only range through a few degrees, Cochabamba is the fourth largest city in Bolivia with a metro population exceeding 1.3 million residents. With a human history ranging back through Incan times, the region was pivotal to the growth of the Spanish Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries, with agricultural production within the valley providing year-round sustenance for the silver miners in Potosi to the south. The airfield in Cochabamba was part of the first route pairing for the newly established Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano (LAB) airline in 1925, an airline that would have a tumultuous evolution until it ultimately succumbed to market forces in 2008. To this day, the airfield is the host for a sad fleet of relics of the golden age of aviation with dozens of decommissioned Boeing 727s, DC-3s, C-47s and a variety of other aircraft wishing for a resurrection that is never likely to happen. Time marches on though and o…