Zumpango, Mexico. More than two decades of conflicts and controversies, two canceled projects and almost four presidential six-year terms had to pass before the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico could have a new airport.
Shortly before 7 am yesterday, the first flight took off from the new Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), operated by Aeroméxico, bound for Villahermosa, Tabasco. Around 10:30 a.m., the first commercial flight, operated by Volaris, landed from Guadalajara.
But far from replacing the congested Mexico City International Airport (AICM), the AIFA is barely trying to give it a break.
Having overcome the challenge of concluding its first construction phase in record time –barely 29 months–, the new air terminal now faces what could be its greatest challenge: positioning itself as a real alternative, not only to decongest air traffic of the country’s capital, but to attend to its future growth.
And it is that the Ministry of National Defense, on which the concessionaire of the aerodrome built on the land of the Santa Lucía military air base depends, estimated yesterday that this year only about 2.5 million travelers will move through the terminal and that, in 2023, the figure will reach five million.
In its first phase, the AIFA is in a position to transport 20 million people annually. Starting in 2032, the capacity would double to 40 million and in 2050, it would reach 90 million in 2050.
The foregoing means that the AIFA would close 2022 with a use of 12.5% of its capacity, and in 2023 the percentage would rise to 25 percent.
In perspective, the initial capacity of the AIFA is equivalent to 55% of the flow of passengers transported by the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) last year (36 million) and 40% of the number of travelers who passed through that terminal in in 2019 (50 million), its last peak before the pandemic.
In another comparison, it represents 28.6% of the projected capacity for the defenestrated New Mexico International Airport (NAIM) in its first phase, which was intended to serve 70 million users, although the latter was intended to completely replace the AICM.
Around noon yesterday, Luis Crescencio Sandoval, Secretary of Defense – the agency in charge of the construction – officially handed over the AIFA facilities to Brigadier General Isidoro Pastor Román, in his capacity as general director of the International Airport Concessionaire Felipe Ángeles SA de CV, which has been managing the terminal since yesterday.
According to Sedena, on its first day of operations, the air terminal transported 2,022 passengers, the product of 20 flight operations: four from Aeroméxico, six from Volaris, four from VivaAerobus, two from Conviasa, two private flights to the United States States and two cargo flights.
Shortly before 1:30 p.m., the AIFA received its first international flight from Caracas, Venezuela, operated by the Venezuelan state company Conviasa.
Hours earlier, during the morning conference of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador -held in the AIFA terminal building-, Isidoro Pastor announced that by the end of 2022, the air terminal will have operations of 30 routes to various destinations in Mexico.
He also stated that in the second half of the year it will host international flights from the US Delta Airlines and the Panamanian Copa Airlines.
attached to costs
During the AIFA inauguration ceremony, General Gustavo Vallejo, responsible for the construction of the air terminal, highlighted that the air terminal was built respecting the original projected budget of 74.535 million pesos, despite the fact that, due to its inflationary update, the final budget provided by the Ministry of Finance was already around 88.107 million pesos.
Vallejo defended that Sedena made efficient and transparent use of the budgeted money and presumed that it was even enough to build additional works that were not originally contemplated in the project, such as a hotel, a gas station and a museum.
Without further clarification, Vallejo Suárez ignored remarks such as those made yesterday by the Mexican civil association against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), which verified after an investigation that practically all the contracts for the work were assigned without bidding.
According to an investigation published yesterday by MCCI after making multiple requests for access to information, the organization was able to conclude that 77% of the contracts were assigned by restricted invitation to pre-selected suppliers and 23% were awarded by direct assignment.
Last week, the newspaper El Universal also published that, according to the figures of the Public Account published by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, the resources transferred for the construction of the work added up to the end of 2021, 104,532 million pesos, to which would add another 11,450 million contemplated in the Project of Expenditures of the Federation 2022.
That same week, the Presidency of the Republic denied that there were cost overruns in the work, but did not explain the reasons why the sum of the accounting entries of the Public Account shows a figure of allocated resources 40% higher than the cost of the work defended by the Sedena.
Long way
From another perspective, the materialization of the AIFA also represents the culmination of a long road in the search for solutions to the air congestion of the AICM, which was already visible in the 1990s and produced as a first response a project to build a new air terminal in the municipality of San Salvador Atenco, in the area of the dried up Lake Texcoco.
In 2001-2002, during the six-year term of former President Vicente Fox, this attempt foundered after poor social management of the work, which aroused a strong rejection by ejidatarios whose lands would be expropriated to house the aerodrome.
As a temporary remedy, at the end of that administration, Terminal 2 of the AICM was built, which would give passenger management a break, but would not give it more operational capacity, since the aerodrome no longer had space to house more runways.
On the other hand, in October 2018, already as president-elect and after carrying out a controversial popular consultation that had low citizen participation and did not have a qualification from the electoral authority, Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that he would cancel the work of the NAIM and in instead it would build an airport at the Santa Lucía air base instead.
At the date of its cancellation, the Texcoco airport had a construction progress of around 33% and a physical investment of more than 36,000 million pesos.
In its first phase, the AIFA is in a position to transport 20 million people annually. Starting in 2032, the capacity would double to 40 million and in 2050, it would reach 90 million in 2050.
Civil infrastructure with which the AIFA begins:
- 2 runways 4,500 m long and 45 m wide
- 1 control tower of 90 meters
- 1 terminal building with capacity for 20 million passengers
- 48 aircraft contact positions (16 are remote).
- 1 parking lot for 4,000 vehicles
- 1 cargo terminal with a capacity of 470,000 tons
- 1 aircraft maintenance base