San José Airport (SJO): terminals, flights

Aeropuerto Internacional Juan Santamaría (IATA: SJO, ICAO: MROC) is a network point for San José, Costa Rica. Our catalogue shows 0 departing routes and 1 arriving, with the airlines, frequencies and lowest peso (MXN) fares listed below.

Airport facts

SJO carries 1 routes and 2 airlines in our catalogue, totalling 12 weekly departures. Aeropuerto Internacional Juan Santamaría (ICAO MROC) serves San José, Costa Rica, in the America/Costa_Rica zone (UTC−6 in July). Its coordinates (9.99386, -84.2088) are the basis of every distance on this site.

• IATA: SJO
• ICAO: MROC
• City: San José
• Country: Costa Rica
• Time zone: America/Costa_Rica
• Coordinates: 9.99386, -84.2088
• Airlines at the airport: 2

Time difference against Mexico City. In July, San José runs 0 h behind the Mexican capital (UTC−6 versus UTC−6). In January the airport operates on UTC−6, so the gap is not constant across the year: daylight saving shifts it. This is the calculation that decides whether a pre-booked ground connection still works.

What each code is for. The IATA code (SJO) is what the bag tag and the ticket use; the ICAO code (MROC) is what flight plans, NOTAMs and flight trackers use. To follow the inbound aircraft that will become your flight, ICAO is the one that returns reliable results. And if SJO is not printed on your bag tag, the bag was not checked through to here — worth catching at the counter.

Airlines at SJO

2 catalogued airlines operate routes to or from SJO: 1 full-service and 1 low-cost, with checked allowance from 0 to 25 kg. Alliances present: SkyTeam. They cover 1 catalogued routes and 12 weekly departures. The table below lists each operator with its type, alliance and checked allowance.

Carriers in our catalogue operating routes to or from this airport, with type, alliance and economy baggage allowance:

How this list is built. These are the airlines appearing in catalogued routes that touch SJO, not the airport’s full directory: a carrier that flies here but not on a pair we cover does not appear. The type — full-service or low-cost — and the allowance come from our own record for each carrier, and where the datum does not exist we say so rather than filling it with a plausible number.

25 kg separate the most generous operator from the leanest at SJO. That gap is what reorders prices once the bag is in: a cheaper base fare on a carrier with no included baggage can land above a full-service one the moment you check a single piece. Compare the total, not the headline figure.

Routes to San José (SJO)

Our catalogue lists 1 routes into SJO, totalling 12 weekly departures and spanning 1,910 to 1,910 km. The busiest is MEX-SJO at ~12 flights a week; 0 of them carry a cached fare, spread across 1 audience profiles. Every row in this section comes from that same corridor catalogue, not from a live search.

What traffic SJO moves. By audience profile, the routes catalogued here split as: Latin American regional corridor (1). That mix explains the airport’s seasonality: family corridors spike in December and Holy Week, leisure ones follow the holiday calendar, and regional ones stay flatter across the year.

Why some rows have no fare. Of the 1 routes listed, 0 returned a price on the collector’s last pass and the rest show a dash. A dash means the automated query got no result for that pair — not that the route is suspended or expensive. For those pairs the reference price comes from the live search, which queries current inventory.

Frequency is the figure that drives price hardest. In a corridor with many weekly departures the seats compete against each other and the fare floor drops; in a thin one the airline does not need to discount to fill. Comparing two SJO routes on fare without looking at frequency therefore misleads: the dear one is not expensive, it simply has half the supply.

Connection tips

SJO concentrates 12 catalogued weekly departures across 2 airlines, in the America/Costa_Rica zone. That density is what decides how much slack to leave on a connection: the more of its own services the airline runs here, the more same-day rebooking options exist.

Aeropuerto Internacional Juan Santamaría runs on the America/Costa_Rica time zone; factor the offset from your origin city when planning connections and transfers. The busiest route at SJO is MEX-SJO (~12 flights a week). Book 4–8 weeks ahead for the busiest routes to/from San José; fares climb in December, Holy Week and summer. Each route guide above shows month-by-month seasonality and the lowest peso fare. That window is a general Mexican-market rule of thumb, not a measurement of this route: our series records observed prices, not the lead time at which each ticket was bought.

The cheap connection that loses the checked bag. Two separate tickets are not one itinerary: there is no interline agreement, the bag is not checked through to the final destination, and if the first flight lands late the second airline owes you nothing — it sold a different flight. The apparent saving evaporates the moment you buy a same-day replacement. On a single ticket, rebooking and the bag transfer are the carrier’s problem, not yours.

FAQ

The 8 questions on this record are answered from catalogue figures for SJO: routes and weekly frequencies, minimum fares observed by the collector, checked-baggage allowances and the rights regime that applies on each leg. No answer adds data that is not in those sources.

What are the IATA and ICAO codes for San José airport? The IATA code is SJO and the ICAO code is MROC. Aeropuerto Internacional Juan Santamaría serves San José, Costa Rica.

Which airlines operate at SJO? Airlines on our catalogued routes at SJO: Aeromexico, Volaris.

How many routes are there from San José (SJO)? Our catalogue lists 0 departing routes and 1 arriving at SJO — see the tables above.

What time zone is SJO in? SJO operates in the America/Costa_Rica time zone.

How many weekly departures does SJO have in this catalogue? Across the catalogued routes touching SJO we count 12 weekly departures over 2 airlines and 1 routes. That is the coverage relevant to Mexican travellers, not the airport’s full directory.

What is the time difference between San José and Mexico City? In July, San José runs 0 h behind Mexico City (UTC−6 versus UTC−6). The gap shifts with daylight saving, so recompute it for your exact date before booking transfers.

What is the longest catalogued route at SJO? Catalogued routes at SJO span 1,910 to 1,910 km great-circle, computed from each airport’s coordinates. That distance drives aircraft type and the applicable compensation band on European sectors.

Which airlines are based at SJO? Avianca run SJO as a base. An airline based here keeps aircraft and crews overnight, so it has more of its own services to rebook a disrupted passenger onto the same day.

Related

• Costa Rica airports

Published by FlightsMX Editorial Team. Last verified: May 2026.