Qualla: Eloy Alfaro International Airport

Eloy Alfaro International Airport: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. "We can negotiate with the U.S. about a base in Manta," President Rafael Correa said, "if they let us put a military base in Miami." The answer was obvious. The point was obvious. And in July 2009, the last American P-3 Orion surveillance plane lifted off from Eloy Alfaro International Airport and flew home, ending a decade in which this quiet coastal airfield near Manta had hosted the Pentagon's main drug-hunting operation in the eastern Pacific. The airport is still here - still inaugurated October 24, 1978, still named for the Ecuadorian president who was dragged through the streets of Quito by a mob in 1912, still the fourth-busiest airport in the country. But the runway's geopolitics have changed.

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Eloy Alfaro International Airport: A Name From the Revolution

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. Eloy Alfaro was one of Latin America's more consequential radicals. A liberal revolutionary who twice held the Ecuadorian presidency, he built the railway that climbed from Guayaquil to Quito, separated church from state, and made enemies of the same oligarchs he had fought to un...

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Eloy Alfaro International Airport: Forward Operating Location Manta

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. In 1999, Ecuadorian President Jamil Mahuad signed a ten-year agreement allowing the United States to station up to 475 military personnel at a corner of the airfield, rent-free. The deal created what the Pentagon called Forward Operating Location Manta, home to USAF E-3 Sentry AW...

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Eloy Alfaro International Airport: The Politics of the Runway

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. Not everyone agreed about what the Americans were doing. By the time Rafael Correa took office in 2007, resentment at a foreign military presence had hardened into policy. Correa made clear before his election that he would not renew the lease. Then on March 19, 2008, the Ecuador...

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Eloy Alfaro International Airport: After the Americans Left

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. The final U.S. anti-narcotics flight took off from Manta on July 17, 2009. The air base continues as the Ecuadorian Air Force's Wing 23, while the civilian side operates as the fourth-busiest airport in Ecuador, serving Quito and Guayaquil on domestic routes and, since early 2023...

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Eloy Alfaro International Airport: What Can Still Be Seen

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. Approach from the south and the runway lies parallel to the Pacific, with the blue rectangle of the harbor off to the right. Manta itself spreads inland - a city of about 260,000 known for yellowfin tuna processing and the fisherman statues on its seafront. The dry, sun-baked coa...

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