Campo de Marte Airport (RTE)

Campo de Marte Airport (RTE/SBMT) operates as São Paulo's historic aviation birthplace and the world's second-busiest helicopter hub, inaugurated July 26, 1929 as the city's first airport named after Paris's Champ de Mars, surviving bombardment during the 1932 Constitutionalist Revolution and hosting VASP's inaugural scheduled flights in 1933, now processing 75,000+ annual helicopter operations in the heart of this megacity where rooftop helipads crown skyscrapers, with management transferred from Infraero to XP Inc.'s Pax Aeroportos in August 2022.

Terminal infrastructure features a 1,600-meter asphalt runway 12/30 originally designed for early commercial aviation but now exclusively serving general aviation and helicopters, complemented by extensive heliport facilities accommodating 200+ daily operations, the historic São Paulo Flying Club founded in 1931, multiple FBOs providing world-class executive services, flight training schools, and limited night operations capabilities primarily reserved for emergency medical helicopters serving Latin America's largest metropolitan area.

Operational significance encompasses Campo de Marte's unique role as the epicenter of São Paulo's extraordinary helicopter culture where executives bypass gridlocked streets via aerial commutes between corporate towers, with the facility supporting the world's second-largest urban helicopter fleet providing essential transportation for business leaders, medical emergencies, news gathering, and law enforcement in a megacity where surface travel can require hours for distances helicopters cover in minutes.

Strategic importance extends beyond aviation to encompass the airport's preservation of Brazilian aviation heritage where VASP pioneered scheduled airline service connecting São Paulo to interior cities, while today serving as vital infrastructure for a vertical transportation network unique in scale outside Manhattan, enabling São Paulo's business elite to maintain productivity despite surface congestion, with Campo de Marte representing both aviation history and future urban mobility solutions in Latin America's financial capital where helicopters have become as essential as elevators for navigating vertical and horizontal distances.