In recent weeks, the government announced an agreement with the airlines to increase AIFA flights from 12 to more than 100 daily operations, with which, in addition, domestic cargo flights and charters would be migrated to the new airport. After the announcement, Volaris reported the opening of 10 new routes in the new airport as well as in the Toluca International Airport, a capacity that would be achieved after removing 140 operations from the AICM.
However, Aeroméxico submitted to judicial review the declarations of saturation and studies on the operational capacity of the AICM, determined by instances such as Navigation Services in the Mexican Air Space (Seneam).
In this regard, Cerdá warned that there should be no cohesion on the part of the government to place more capacity in the airport built at the Santa Lucía military air base.
“The new airport opened at the end of March this year. The government built a world-class airport, and it should be credited; however, it lacks public transportation infrastructure, which is urgently required to connect the city with the airport,” he said.
“We have made it clear to the government that airlines need to have the freedom to choose which airport they decide to serve (…) In addition, dividing cargo and passenger operations into more than one airport is often not economically viable,” he added.
Regarding the recovery of Category 1 of Mexican air safety, the industry representative said that work is still being done with the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC) to comply with the observations made by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) a year.
Although the AFAC assures that the 28 observations made by the FAA have been resolved, the US authority indefinitely postponed its technical review visit, scheduled for the second week of May, in which it was expected to have progress towards an exit from the degradation.
“It is essential to have Mexico with Category 1. I think we are very close, but there are some pending issues that the authorities still have to comply with the FAA,” Cerdá warned. “Hopefully this year we will get Category 1 back.”
