Augusto C. Sandino International Airport () or ACS is the main joint civil-military public international airport in Managua, Nicaragua. It is named after Nicaraguan revolutionary Augusto Nicolás Sandino (1895–1934) and located in the City's 6th ward, known locally as Distrito 6. Originally christened as Las Mercedes Airport in 1968, it was later renamed Augusto C. Sandino International Airport during the Sandinista government in the 1980s and again in 2001 to Managua International Airport by then-president Arnoldo Alemán. Its name was changed once more in February 2007 to its current name by President Daniel Ortega to honor the revolutionary. Managua also has an alternative landing strip at Punta Huete Airport. Punta Huete was designed for larger aircraft. This alternative landing site, however, does not service commercial aircraft. The airport is managed by the state-run Administrative Company of International Airports, more commonly known as the EAAI given its Spanish name, the Empresa Administradora de Aeropuertos Internacionales. The runway at the airport is 8,012 ft long, and it is located at an elevation of 194 feet. History Before ACS, there was the old Xolotlan Airport, about 2 miles east of Managua, built in 1915 which very soon became too small for Managua's airline service growth. Thus, on January 22, 1942, the Nicaraguan Government and Pan American Airways signed a contract to construct an airport by Las Mercedes Country Estate which inspired the name for Las Mercedes Airport. Las Mercedes was further upgraded, re-designed to handle Boeing 707 aircraft, and re-inaugurated on July 4, 1968, by Anastasio Somoza Debayle. In the early 1970s, Las Mercedes was expanded to more modern standards, such as four health inspectors, eight immigration officers and ten customs inspectors. It was considered fully equipped, having air conditioning, background music, loudspeakers and conveyor belts for baggage handling. It also had a restaurant on its upper floor where visitors and travelers could see airport movement. The expanded airport could serve three aircraft at once and by 1975 LANICA, the National Airline of Nicaragua, as well as many well known carriers Pan Am, KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines), Taca Airlines, Sahsa, Avianca, Iberia, SAM, TAN, Varig, and smaller local carriers, flew into Las Mercedes. When the Sandinistas took power, the airport was named after Augusto César Sandino, a Nicaraguan revolutionary and guerrilla leader, after whom the Sandinista movement is named. The Sandinistas however did not maintain the airport, and it began to deteriorate until