Land acquisition divided communities

A law conferring powers of compulsory purchase of land on the Chinchero plateau, passed in August 2012, helped pave the way for the airport.[2] Land acquisition for the project caused divisions between the three historical communities, Yanacona, Cuper and Ayllopongo. The airport site is in Yanacona territory with community members having received money for selling their land for the project. But the other two communities did not receive money even though they will suffer similar negative impacts from the airport as residents of Yanacona.  The majority of Yanacona residents voted in favour of the airport.

Divisions between communities were exacerbated by government dismissal, in cahoots with allied media, of people raising legitimate social and environmental issues as opponents of ‘progress’ and even portraying them as socially dangerous [1]. A 2013 report in a local newspaper stated that various members of affected communities had received death threats from community leaders because they were unwilling to sell land to make way for the airport and other infrastructure [2].

There was no prior consultation and the government denies indigenous status on the grounds that Chinchero is “too close to a town” [1]. Compensation for land acquisition was only awarded to a small minority; in January 2013 USD56 million was handed over to 426 people, less than 3 per cent of Chinchero’s 12,000 inhabitants. The 426 beneficiaries owned the 350 hectares allocated for the airport but a much larger area surrounding the actual site will be affected.   

The 40-year construction and operation concession for Chinchero Airport was awarded to the Kuntur Wasi consortium in April 2014. Construction, at an initial cost of USD538 million rising to USD658 million with further renovations after the airport commences operations, was anticipated to commence within a few months after the relocation of wells and reservoirs on the site and completion of engineering studies.[4] A series of scandal about the contract terms forces the Transport Minister at that time Vizcarra (now President) to renounce. Negotiations over the construction contract between the government and Kuntur Wasi culminated in unilateral cancellation by the government in January 2018. The project was stopped. The government then announced that construction would be financed by the state with a USD200 million investment for Phase 1, consisting of a 16 kilometer perimeter fence, followed by ground leveling works, drainage, paving, and a runway, scheduled for completion in 2021.[4]  In  2018 Kuntur Wasi desist to demand the government before the CIADI. 

Often residents of the Cusco region protested delayed construction of the airport which they said was to the detriment of tourism [11]. In January 2019 a phalanx of bulldozers and trucks arrived in Chinchero to begin clearing land for the airport. Many archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians said the airport and resulting surge in tourism-focused development, in particular unregulated construction of hotels and restaurants, would damage the very cultural wonders-(discovered and undiscovered). Nearly 200 Peruvian and international experts signed a letter to President Martin Vizcarra calling on him to suspend the airport and consider relocating the project.[15]  At the time of writing a petition accompanying the letter had already garnered 6,563 signatures.[16]

Protest against the airport was reported in October 2014,  members of a women’s weaving collective expressed their fear about the disappearance of traditions.

Highlighting possible violations of indigenous people’s rights CAN president Antolin Huáscar Flores called for responsible intervention by authorities to ensure their participation in and economic benefit from the airport. 

In May 2019, as bulldozers scraped away millions of tonnes of earth to clear the site for airport construction, archaeologists, historians, and local people expressed their concerns. Natalia Majluf said, “This is a built landscape; there are terraces and routes which were designed by the Incas…Putting an airport here would destroy it.” Cusco-based anthropologist Pablo Del Valle  said: “It seems ironic and in a way contradictory that here, just 20 minutes from the Sacred Valley, the nucleus of the Inca culture, they want to build an airport – right on top of exactly what the tourists have come here to see.” Mark Rice, author of Making Machu Picchu: The Politics of Tourism in Twentieth-Century Peru said the new airport would do a “lot of damage to one of the key tourism offerings of Cusco, which is its scenic beauty.” Some locals who rely upon tourism were wary of the airport plans. Other critics of the project said that damages to the Inca ruins would be incalculable, and worried that construction of the airport would deplete the watershed of Lake Piuray, which the city of Cusco depends upon for almost half of its water supply. The expectation of airport construction had led to new houses and hotels being thrown up hurriedly in Chinchero in the expectation of a tourism windfall [17]. 

The World Monuments Fund addressed the current Peruvian President, Francisco Sagasti, in February 2021, requesting compliance with the recommendation made by Unesco in 2019 that a Heritage Impact Study (EIP) be conducted. In January 2020, El Comercio accessed two Patrimonial Impact Studies (EIP) prepared on behalf of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC), which identified 39 negative impacts (out of a total of 60) on the Inca citadel and the Andean Qápac Ñan road system; that is, it was determined that Chinchero Cusco International Airport (AICC) would generate a 65% impact on world heritage. However, both documents were rejected after an evaluation by the MINCUL (Ministry of Culture). 

MINCUL stated that UNESCO's recommendations on carrying out the EIP are not binding. In addition, a veteran pilot of the Peruvian Air Force, Bruno Papi, points out that the location of the airport complicates the arrival and departure of international flights, which was recognized in 2019 by the same MTC. The destruction of 17 springs identified by Óscar Paredes Pando, professor of anthropology at the San Antonio de Abad Cusco University (UNSAAC), would also affect the water supply of the city of Cusco. An agricultural engineer and specialist in social water management, Marco Zeisser Polatsik, considers that the EIA of the Chinchero Airport violates the Water Resources Law because it fails to identify the uses of water, sources or users in the project's area of ​​influence. Also, José Ángel Bueno Galdo, Emeritus Dean of Geology at UNSAAC, warned about the risks of karstification and sinkholes in the Chinchero-Maras area. 

In January 2021, the civil association Unión Ciudadana por la Defensa y Valor del Patrimonio Cultural y Medio Ambiente based in Cusco, whose president is Mark Zeisser, filed two amparo lawsuits against the MTC, MINCUL and the South Korean consortium Korea Airports Corporation ( and three Korean engineering companies) contracted for the construction of the airport. One claim concerns the protection of historical heritage and the second concerns water resources. The first demand was accepted by the judiciary. In reaction to this, the governor and different regional, provincial, district authorities, political and social representatives such as the Bar Association of the Cusco region and the population of the Sacred Valley, spoke out against the request for protection. The second amparo claim was rejected and the Unión Ciudadana por la Defensa y Valor del Patrimonio Cultural y Medio Ambiente appealed this decision. Incredibly, the new Minister of the Environment of the Sagasti government; spoke in favor of the construction of the airport, claiming that "everything generates an impact from buying bread to breathing".

Chinchero Airport is anticipated to replace the existing Alejandro Velasco Astete Airport in Cusco, with a capacity for 5 million passengers, rising to up to 8 million passengers. In March 2014 Peru’s investment promotion agency ProInversion confirmed that the project would require an initial USD538 million investment rising to USD658 million.

The 40-year construction and operation concession for Chinchero Airport was awarded to the Kuntur Wasi consortium of Peru’s Andino Investment Holdings and Argentina’s Corporacion America in April 2014. Kuntur Wasi’s consortium finance was approved by OSITRAN (Supervisory Board for Investment in Public Transport Infrastructure). The tender for the supervision of construction and engineering studies was awarded to the Valle Sagrado consortium.

After the contract cancellation with Kuntur Wasi, the government announced that the construction of Chinchero Airport would be financed by the state with a USD200 million investment, for Phase 1. USD36.3 million was allocated for land acquisition [4]. The airport construction began in February 2019.