The City International Airport Mexico (AICM), the busiest in Latin America, announced this Friday that it will reduce flights per hour from 52 to 43 starting next week by order of the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The measure is to encourage airlines to open routes in the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), López Obrador’s flagship project inaugurated on March 21, 2022, which has not reached its passenger goal amid criticism for its distance from the center of the Mexican capital.
But AICMwhich has been under the control of the Secretary of the Navy (Semar) since last year, postponed the start of this policy due to complaints from airline companies.
“Starting next Monday, January 8, 2024, the reduction from 52 to 43 operations per hour will apply, a measure that was postponed at the request of SEMAR-AICM before the President of the Republic, to minimize the effects that it would represent both to our passengers and to airlines for this winter season“, the airport stated in a statement.
The realignment occurred “after concluding a complex and complicated process in the assignment of landing and takeoff times (slots) culminating in the proportional reduction of a total of 9,413 slots”.
The bulletin warned that the new rule will also apply to the peak summer season, which will begin on March 31 and end on October 26, according to the AICM.
:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/3ISK7M3DAJFA3AJ5E456ONSW7E.jpg "Mexico City Airport reduces its flights by order of López Obrador")
The decrease has sparked criticism from airlines and businessmen, who warn of the loss of competitiveness of the AICM, considered the busiest aerodrome in the region with nearly 46 million passengers annually, according to the International Airports Council for Latin America and the Caribbean ( ACI-LAC).
Even so, López Obrador has defended the measure and the promotion of AIFA, one of his flagship works, by arguing that the AICM is saturated.
The president began his six-year term, in December 2018, with the controversial cancellation of the work of the New Mexico International Airport (NAIM), which would replace the AICM, to instead build a complementary airfield at the Santa Lucía military air base and hand over its administration to the Army.
“As previously reported, this slot reduction will not apply to international flights.”concluded the AICM statement.
Source: Gestion
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