Flight Briefing: International Arrival from Tapachula

Recently I prepared some notes for a fellow pilot planning to fly into Guatemala from Tapachula. This might be valuable to others as well, so sharing it here as well.

The graphical overview of the typical route and ATC frequency hand-offs. Also depicted the active vulcanos, both for watch-out and sightseeing.

In the Guatemala airspace, waypoints of cities or villages are often used. These are in turn not often recognizable in aviation software. Here are the common Guatemala ATC hand-off points.

Here is the full article with the waypoint coordinates or VOR-relative locations.

The two relevant waypoints for this flight.

Waypoint Name Coordinates VOR Info
Patulul N 14° 23.806
W 091° 11.768
VOR SJO 320° 35 NM
Canyon de Palin N 14° 24.285
W 090° 41.364
VOR AUR 220° 15 NM
VOR SJO 15° 30 NM

When flying into Guatemala city from the south west you will commonly be assigned the Visual approach Amatitlan. Its essentially keeping you to the W of the Guatemala City Valley to seperate you from runway and approaching traffic. When arriving at “Fraternidad”, aka “Megafrata” you Will usually be directed to join left downwind for runway 02.

This map can be found on the website in the electronic AIP section of the DGAC Guatemala

After landing you will have to taxi to the “International Ramp South”.

After clearing migration and customs you will be able to taxi to your final parking destination.