What Is CNF Airport? Why Belo Horizonte Flies From Confins

In the code search of IATA, the airlines' trade association, CNF sits under the city name Belo Horizonte, next to Pampulha (PLU) and BHZ, a metropolitan-area code that works like SAO, as the GRU guide explains. A search for "Confins" returns nothing.

Where CNF is, and who runs it

The concession contract places the site in Confins and Lagoa Santa, split 63% and 37% by the operator's count. DECEA, the air force department behind Brazil's aeronautical records, files it under Belo Horizonte, tagged INTL, for international.

The contract says Aeroporto Internacional Tancredo Neves/Confins, IATA says Tancredo Neves Intl, and the operator's site says Aeroporto Internacional de Belo Horizonte, under the brand BH Airport.

ANAC, the federal civil aviation regulator, dates the concession's start to May 7, 2014, for 30 years, extendable once by up to five to restore its economic balance. None of its 13 amendments, the latest from January 2026, changes the term.

The operator's site says the airport is run by Mexico's Grupo ASUR, Zurich Airport and Infraero, the federal airport company. ASUR arrived on September 1, 2026, closing its R$ 5.1 billion purchase of CPC, a Motiva subsidiary with stakes in 20 airports.

Why the flights are in Confins, not at Pampulha

Pampulha – Carlos Drummond de Andrade, SBBH for DECEA, sits 9 km from the center, with no international tag. Federal decisions limited its airline traffic. On March 8, 2005, the old civil aviation department restricted it to regional routes flown by turboprops of up to 50 seats, as a 2019 report of the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) recounts.

In 2010 ANAC annulled its own reissue of that limit, which rested on neither safety nor capacity, as a breach of the free-routes clause of its founding law. The transport ministry imposed a regional-only rule in May 2017 and lifted it that October, then restored it in January 2018 to comply with a TCU precautionary order. In March 2019 the court withdrew the order and left the choice to the government, provided it was technically grounded.

In 2020 the federal government delegated the airport to Minas Gerais state and revoked the 2017 and 2018 ordinances; CONAC, the federal civil aviation council, revoked its Pampulha resolutions from May 1, 2022, as they applied only while Infraero ran it. The state's 30-year concession contract, 001/2022, held by a company CPC set up, places no limit on the type of flight and never mentions Confins.

Today's terms are in ANAC's operating certificate of September 15, 2026: no restriction on the type of air service, but aircraft of reference code 3 or 4 may not operate in instrument weather conditions.

The airlines have not come back. In the passenger statistics they file with ANAC, Pampulha went from 423,059 passengers in 2015 to 5,673 in 2019, and to none from August 2021 to August 2026. The register of flights lists no scheduled departure there from January to July 2026.

ASUR's purchase of CPC covers Pampulha too, so one group now holds stakes in both airports. Rio handles the same tension with a federal passenger cap on its downtown airport; see the GIG guide.

What flies from CNF

By our sum of ANAC's register of flights for July 2026, the latest month out on September 29, 2026, 4,631 scheduled flights left CNF, operated by 12 companies, for 68 airports, 9 abroad. Azul flew two in three, 3,111; GOL 676, LATAM 575 and Azul Conecta 141.

Abroad, that month's register shows Copa to Panama City (42 departures), LATAM and Sky to Santiago (44), TAP to Lisbon (31), GOL to Buenos Aires (3), Azul to Curaçao, Orlando, Montevideo and Bariloche, and a single departure to Asunción. The operator's own 2026 list adds Punta del Este and calls Bariloche and Curaçao seasonal.

On September 28, 2026, the operator's directory put Azul at check-in area 1, GOL and LATAM at area 2, and TAP, Copa and Sky at area 3. Each airline sets its own baggage rules.

Getting into Belo Horizonte

The buses are metropolitan lines: SEINFRA, the state infrastructure secretariat, sets the fares, in force since January 9, 2026, and DER-MG, the state road department, publishes the timetables. Read on September 28, 2026:

Conexão Aeroporto, the lines' brand, sells tickets at a counter in Terminal 1, gives trip times of about 1 hour to 1 hour 40, and lists cash, debit cards and the Cartão Ótimo transit card, but no credit card, so carry some reais. Boarding at the bus station adds a R$ 7.88 terminal fee, and the brand's timetables differ from the state's on several departures. Lines 5242, 5260 and 5270 leave the airport once a weekday.

Taxis at the curb come from four cooperatives that, in the airport's words, operate there exclusively; the airport prints no fare. DER-MG lists both airports as ranks of the state's metropolitan taxi service, whose meter, in the latest fare act we found in the state gazette, from 2022, charges R$ 9.05 plus R$ 5.00 per km, or R$ 6.00 from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. on weekdays, on Sundays and holidays and after 2 p.m. on Saturdays, with no luggage charge.

Ride apps pick up on the middle-lane curb; the airport names Uber, 99 and inDrive (who regulates them) and says taxis and apps run around the clock.

Terminals and connections

In the 2025 movement data, Terminals 1 and 2 split the passengers almost evenly, 6.75 million and 6.48 million, and Terminal 2 handled 548,249 of the 549,094 on international flights. Those are last year's figures; the parking map on the operator's how-to-get-there page, read on September 29, 2026, puts check-in areas 1 and 2 in Terminal 1 and area 3 in Terminal 2.

Connecting from an international arrival to a domestic flight, you reclaim your bag and recheck it: Brazilian customs grants automatic transit only to baggage continuing abroad, as the connection guide explains. The operator asks you to arrive two hours before a domestic flight and three before an international one.

Visas, layovers and customs have their own guides, and Brazil has no arrival card.

How busy CNF is

BH Airport reports 13.3 million passengers for 2025; the movement data it filed with ANAC add up to slightly less, 13,234,930 boardings and disembarkations. About three in ten of those, 3.84 million, were by people changing planes, against half at Viracopos. Only 4.1% were on international flights.

For 2026, the operator forecast August at about 1.11 million passengers, below August 2025's 1.17 million, and September 3% below a year earlier; ANAC's 2026 movement data were not out by September 29, 2026.

Sources

Accessed September 28, 2026.

• ANAC — Confins concession, compiled contract, clauses 1.1.3.1, 2.6 and 2.7, and amendments; register of flights, January to July 2026; 2025 movement data; airline statistics, read on September 29, 2026
• Official Gazette — ANAC Ordinance 19,998/2026; transport ministry Ordinance 35/2018; infrastructure ministry Ordinance 64/2020, art. 6; CONAC Resolution 2,051/2021. TCU — Judgment 464/2019, report paragraphs 15 to 32
• IATA — code search. DECEA — AISWEB records for SBCF and SBBH
• BH Airport — about, history, how to get there, airlines, investments and releases of August and September 2026; the flight board and the stores and services directory, read on September 29, 2026
• ASUR — the 2025 agreement and the 2026 closing
• Minas Gerais — SEINFRA Resolution 63/2025, bus fares, and Resolution 31/2022, taxi meter, in the state gazette of October 12, 2022, page 23; DER-MG's line lookup and taxi page; the Pampulha contract, archived
• Conexão Aeroporto — lines 5240, 5241 and 5250

Method on how we research; Jeff Bruno writes from Curitiba. Next door: getting around, all guides.

What we could not verify

• What a taxi to central Belo Horizonte costs. The airport and the four cooperatives publish no fare table, DER-MG's taxi page links a 2016 table, and meter rate times distance would be our arithmetic, not a fare. The airport's taxi desk gives estimates in person.
• Which terminal each gate is in. The operator's parking map places check-in areas by terminal, but its flight board lists gates with no terminal, and its taxi text and the state's bus itinerary mention a Terminal 3 that the map does not draw.
• Why no airline has returned to Pampulha. No rule forbids it, and no document we read gives the reason.
• The minimum connection time. BH Airport advertises the country's shortest without giving a figure.