'Giving it a chance'Īround 87 percent of the airport construction has been finished with two months left before the March 21 opening, said Captain Diego Diaz Avila of the military's engineer corps. In other areas, notably the access roads that will link the terminal building to the highway, dozens of laborers worked with trucks and machinery to complete the project in time.Ī planned rail link to connect the airport with the capital's suburban train network is not scheduled to be completed until the second half of 2023. The gleaming toilets are decorated with images of traditional mariachi music and wrestling. On a recent visit to the Santa Lucia airport, construction workers were seen putting the finishing touches to the inside of the new terminal building, while cleaners swept floors and cleaned windows. Lopez Obrador commissioned the military - which is also involved in other pet projects of his government, such as a tourist train in the Yucatan Peninsula - to oversee construction of the new airport at a cost of around $3.6 billion.įelipe Angeles International Airport, located north of Mexico City, is one of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's flagship projects RODRIGO ARANGUA AFP He called the $13 billion project a "bottomless pit" rife with corruption and decided instead to turn the Santa Lucia military air base into a second airport for the sprawling Mexican capital. Its location in eastern Mexico City is far more convenient for many residents of the capital than Felipe Angeles, which is located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the capital's historic district.īut Benito Juarez airport is showing its age and handled a record 50.3 million passengers in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic.įelipe Angeles airport, named after a general in the Mexican revolution, has been engulfed in controversy from the start.Īfter taking office in 2018, Lopez Obrador canceled another airport project launched by the previous government and already one-third complete. The existing hub, which handled 36 million passengers in 2021, is one of the busiest in Latin America. With two commercial runways built on a military air base outside the capital, Felipe Angeles International Airport is meant to take the pressure off the city's Benito Juarez airport.
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