A new Mexico City airport intended to replace a project canceled by President López Obrador should be ready for use in mid-2021 with a starting capacity of 20 million passengers per year, a senior official said on Friday.
Brigadier General Ricardo Vallejo
, head of the military college of engineers , announced that the first phase of the airport to be built in Santa Lucía should be completed by June 2021.
“However, its maximum potential, its development potential , will be (reached in) over 50 years ,” Vallejo said.
The budget allocated for the construction of the airport is MXN $68.367 million plus taxes. The General also explained that it will take 35 minutes to get to the San Lucía airport from the Benito Juárez terminal .
He said the airport , due to be built by the military , would begin with an annual capacity for 20 million passengers that could eventually rise to 80 million.
Sergio Samaniego
, the head of the project in Santa Lucía , said that Santa Lucía will cost 28% of what the Texcoco airport would have cost.
According to the Environmental Impact Assessment for the Construction Project , issued by the Defense Ministry , Santa Lucía will saturate in 10 years.
Santa Lucía
lies some 47 km north of the current Benito Juárez International Airport. Still, some engineering experts say the two hubs may not be able to operate simultaneously; nevertheless, Transport and Communications Minister Javier Jiménez Espriu rejects that opinion. He told the news conference a third terminal would be added to the Benito Juárez airport where the presidential hangar was located.
That would raise the current airport’s capacity to 50 million passengers a year, Jiménez said.
The government aims to save billions of dollars with the Santa Lucía site but questions remain about carrying out the plan, in part due to the government ’s own statements.
In December, López Obrador said construction on the Santa Lucía hub would start in January. Earlier this week he said construction would begin next Monday. At the news conference on Friday, he said construction would begin in June, “once we have all the requirements.”
The new airport has divided society, as López Obrador abruptly canceled a USD $13 billion partially built hub a few weeks before taking office. He argued that the facility, located in Mexico City ’s eastern flank, was tainted by corruption and was too costly.
President López Obrador
’s decision sparked a major sell-off in Mexican financial assets. Critics of the new project also argue that Santa Lucía ’s distance from the capital could hurt tourism by complicating travel for connecting flights from Mexico City .
gm