The Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) is currently not in a position to receive cargo operations due to the lack of infrastructure for three or four months, said Rogelio Jiménez Pons, Undersecretary of Transportation of the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT). ). In an exclusive interview, the federal official declared that the decree that is about to be published will not contemplate commercial operations, but will be exclusively for cargo and charter operators.
Jiménez Pons announced a few days ago that the Mexican government’s plan to reduce saturation at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) contemplates a decree to transfer cargo operations to AIFA, at the same time that he recognized that as long as Mexico does not recover category 1 by the FAA, cargo with the United States will be affected.
“The issue of the category is considered in the decree, we have to give the operators time, first we recover the category and then they go to the AIFA. I am optimistic and hopefully it will be recovered in four months,” he said. At the same time, the undersecretary recognized that, although the decree is given by the saturation of the AICM, the saturation is not above (in the airspace), but in the public areas of the service that makes both terminals inoperative.
“It is saturated but it is not so much the operations, but the infrastructure on the ground. The rooms, the corridors, the bathrooms, the parking lot, and the access, that’s why we will send the cargo to AIFA, ”he added.
Regarding the redesign of airspace, the federal official affirmed that there is no way to go back to the previous design, adding that it is in a field verification phase, and this is a dynamic process, especially since many people who have to do with many other factors.
“We cannot go back to the previous airspace design because the AIFA variable was not there, simple as that. We have to adjust it to this new reality,” he stated.