Rio’s Santos Dumont Airport Closes 6–7 July for BRICS Summit Security

Operations at Rio de Janeiro’s Santos Dumont Airport will be halted on 6 and 7 July while the city hosts the 2025 BRICS heads-of-state summit, Brazilian aviation authorities said. The Department of Airspace Control has established a 10-kilometre exclusion zone around the summit venue at the Museum of Modern Art, permitting only aircraft carrying presidents, senior officials, military units, search-and-rescue crews and security forces to enter the airspace. All commercial and executive flights that would normally use Santos Dumont, one of Brazil’s busiest domestic hubs, will be rerouted to Rio de Janeiro/Galeão International Airport during the two-day restriction. Azul Linhas Aéreas has already alerted passengers that its services will move to Galeão on those dates, with limited disruptions also expected on 5 and 8 July. The temporary shutdown forms part of a broader security and logistics plan for the summit, which is expected to draw leaders from the 11-nation bloc and their delegations. City authorities have also announced road closures in Copacabana and the Aterro do Flamengo, as well as municipal holidays on 4 and 7 July, to ease traffic and concentrate policing near the event sites.