Porto Alegre-Salgado Filho International Airport — Porto Alegre, Brazil

Porto Alegre's Salgado Filho International Airport, known by the code POA, takes its name from Joaquim Pedro Salgado Filho, Brazil's first minister of aeronautics, and sits unusually close to the city center, just a few kilometers from downtown along the Guaíba River. That proximity makes it one of the more convenient big-city airports in Brazil, though it also limits room for expansion compared with more peripheral hubs elsewhere in the country. Rio Grande do Sul's capital relies on POA for both domestic connections to São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasília and a smaller set of international routes. Catastrophic flooding across Rio Grande do Sul in 2024 submerged large sections of the airport and forced an extended closure, a disaster that exposed the facility's vulnerability to the Guaíba's rising waters and prompted discussion of stronger flood defenses. Porto Alegre's gaucho culture and its role as gateway to southern Brazil's wine country add to the airport's steady traffic mix.