Getting around SJU
Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, so a flight between SJU and the U.S. mainland is domestic travel: TSA requires REAL ID (or a passport) to board, the same as any other U.S. airport — Puerto Rico is listed alongside the 50 states in TSA’s own REAL ID guidance. Passport control only applies to travelers arriving on an international flight, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection runs its facial-biometric Simplified Arrival check at the primary inspection point. SJU itself is the largest airport in Puerto Rico and the island’s primary international gateway, run by Aerostar Airport Holdings under a forty-year Public Partnership Agreement with the Puerto Rico Ports Authority signed in 2012 — the first commercial airport in the United States operated by a private company. Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (ASUR), which owns the majority of Aerostar, recorded 13.6 million passengers through SJU in 2025, up 3% on 2024. JetBlue calls itself the largest airline in Puerto Rico, carrying roughly 350,000 international passengers a year through San Juan alone.
