It sits 11 kilometres (7 mi; 6 nmi) west-southwest of the city of Liberia in Guanacaste Province, and serves as a tourism hub for those who visit the Pacific coast and western Costa Rica.

The facility covers 243 hectares (600 acres) of land and has a single 2,750-metre (9,022 ft) runway that can handle wide-body aircraft, including the Boeing 747.

[6] The airport was initially named "Llano Grande", after the surrounding area,[6] then renamed "Aeropuerto Tomas Guardia," and finally honor Quirós for his work for the province of Guanacaste.

[8] Initial response from commercial airlines to the expansion was timid; after one year, however, the airport went from having only one weekly charter flight to one almost every day.

[10] The government made it clear that the solutions were only temporary and that a private company would need to be contracted to expand and operate the airport in the future.