The next time you fly out of Liberia, you now have somewhere to wait that isn’t a gate seat. Guanacaste Airport has opened PURA Lounge, a 354-square-meter (3,810-square-foot) premium waiting area on the departures level facing Gate 8, with windows looking out over the apron.
Check your departure time before you plan around it. The lounge runs daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., which covers the morning and midday departure bank when most flights to the United States and Canada leave. If your flight goes out in the evening, you will clear security to a closed door.
Getting in works three ways. Priority Pass and LoungeKey members are covered by their existing memberships. Everyone else can buy a day pass on the spot, no airline or cabin class required. The airport has not published a rate for the day pass, so you will find out the price at the counter.
Inside there are cushioned seating areas, semi-private zones if you want to shut out the terminal, and showers, which is the amenity that matters most here. Liberia sits in the dry Pacific northwest, and passengers routinely arrive at the airport straight off a beach or a long drive from Nosara, Santa Teresa or the Papagayo resorts with no chance to clean up. High-speed Wi-Fi, charging points, televisions and planted green areas fill out the rest of the space.
Food service covers breakfast and lunch depending on when you arrive, with a self-service station for coffee, soft drinks and Costa Rican liquors. The airport operates the lounge directly rather than contracting it out, which means complaints and requests go to airport staff instead of a third-party concessionaire.
The interior design follows what the airport calls a sense-of-place concept, drawing on the plains, mountains, forests and beaches of Guanacaste. The lounge logo is built from the seed pod of the guanacaste tree, the national tree that gives the province its name.
The build represents a $1.4 million investment by Coriport, the concessionaire that holds the operating rights to Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport under the VINCI Airports network. The lounge created seven direct jobs in customer service, catering and cleaning, and every position went to a Guanacaste resident.
“PURA Lounge reinforces Guanacaste Airport’s position as a modern terminal committed to delivering a high-quality travel experience,” said Renata González, commercial and communications manager at Guanacaste Airport. “We want every passenger to find a space that combines comfort, hospitality and the Pura Vida spirit that defines our region.”
The opening lands in the middle of a wider build-out at Costa Rica’s second-busiest international airport. Liberia has absorbed steady passenger growth as airlines add North American and European routes, and a separate private-aviation terminal financed by Signature Aviation is planned for the same site. Airport management has tied both projects to the same argument, that better facilities at Liberia keep high-spending visitors flying directly into Guanacaste rather than routing through San José and driving four hours west.
Liberia’s terminal has limited seating and limited food options once you are past security, and departure days in Guanacaste often start early. Eight hours a day so there is now an alternative.
