El Dorado International Airport opened on December 10, 1959, replacing Techo Airport as Bogotá's primary airport. It was built during the government of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla as part of a broader campaign to modernize the country, and from its first day it shifted the center of Colombian aviation away from Barranquilla. By 1973 the airport was already handling over 3 million passengers annually, a pace that drove the decision to add a second runway, which opened in 1998.

BOG sits at 8,360 feet above sea level in the Fontibón district, on the high Andean plateau known as the Bogotá savanna. That elevation is not incidental. It shapes how aircraft perform on departure and makes BOG one of the most operationally demanding large airports in the hemisphere. The airport is the primary hub for Avianca and a hub for Copa Airlines Colombia and LATAM Airlines Colombia. A dedicated Puente Aéreo terminal, built by Avianca in 1981, initially handled domestic operations before the broader terminal expansion absorbed much of that traffic. Terminal 1, an h-shaped building with separate international and domestic piers, reached its current form when construction was fully handed over at the end of 2017.

In 2024, BOG handled 45,802,360 passengers, making it the busiest airport in Latin America by passenger volume. It also ranks as the region's leading cargo hub, moving more than 809,000 metric tons of freight in 2024, driven in part by Colombia's large cut-flower export industry. The airport accounts for nearly half of all air traffic in Colombia and connects to destinations across North America, South America, Central America, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Middle East.