Airport Follies

As you take off from Mexico City International Airport, if you look down from the left side of the aircraft, you can see the abandoned site for a new airport.

Because the current airport is located in a heavily populated area, there is no room for further expansion.  In 2014 the airport had reached maximum capacity, and President Enrique Peña Nieto announced plans for a new, larger airport.  It was to be located three miles away on the marshy remains of Lake Texcoco... the large which once covered much of the valley.  The estimated cost was to be thirteen billion U.S. dollars, and it was going to be the second largest airport in the world.  Because of the new airport's proximity, the existing facility would have to be closed.

Reports of corruption and fraud, government strong-arming of local communities to give up their agricultural land, and environmental concerns plagued the project.  Construction was about one third complete, when Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected President in 2018.  He conducted a highly criticized straw poll which showed opposition to the completion of the new airport.  In December of that year López Obrador announced the suspension of construction.  In addition to the money already spent on construction, the cancellation left the government with a debt of 36 billion U.S. dollars in bonds and securities and billions more in compensation for cancelled contracts.  The President announced that the abandoned site would be turned into an ecological park.

Along with the cancellation of the new airport, López Obrador announced that an existing air force base north of the city would be converted into a secondary airport for Mexico City.  Work began in 2019, and service is expected to begin later this month.  The new airport, Felipe Angeles International Airport, is named after a general in the Mexican Revolution.  The problem with this new location is that it is a two-hour drive away from downtown Mexico City, whereas the main airport is about 30 minutes away.  I would pity anyone who arrives at the main airport and has a connecting flight at Felipe Angeles!

This month two Mexican budget airlines, VivaAerobús and Volaris, will begin domestic flights to Guadalajara, Monterrey, Cancún and Tijuana.  Next month Aeroméxico will start flights to Mérida and Villahermosa.  In May Conviasa, a Venezuelan airline, will have flights to Caracas. (López Obrador is buddy-buddy with the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.)

It would appear that the major international carriers, including United, the airline on which I travel, will remain at the existing airport.  I certainly hope so, because I have no desire to land two hours away from Mexico City!