Aborted landings jump in Mexico City as airport crowding worsens

Shortly before taking office last year, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador upended construction of a $13b airport for the nation’s capital. The glitzy, modernist project was riddled with corruption, AMLO said, and congestion could be eased more cheaply with a plan that included improvements for the existing hub. But now, nine months later, the full extent of the risks to that plan are emerging. Mexico City’s airport has recorded a 52% increase in aborted landings in the first five months of the year, according to data obtained through a freedom of information request. Landings thwarted specifically because other planes were still on the runway at the overcrowded airport climbed even faster — by 84%. While pilots are trained to safely handle go-arounds, the surge in frequency of such events is adding to operational headaches at Latin America’s busiest airport. What’s more, a key component to AMLO’s alternative plan -- diverting some commercial air traffic to a nearby military base -- is bogged down in Mexican courts. And even if it were to win legal approval, experts say the plan has little chance of meeting the growing demand for runway space caused by the rise of budget airlines in Mexico. “It’s an unnecessary risk factor,” said Guillermo Galvan, a private-jet pilot and safety instructor at Mexican aviation schools. Landing attempts can be scrubbed for a variety of reasons and they happen at all airports from time to time. Sudden changes in weather conditions have contributed to go-arounds in Mexico City in the past few months, said Gabriel Yee, Grupo Aeromexico SAB’s flight operations manager. As for the congestion, the hub doesn’t have a policy known as “minimum runway use” to get planes out of the way quickly, Yee said. “There’s no denying the airport has more operations than before,” he said. “This is the airport we have for the time being and there are ways to make it work more efficiently.” Story has more details.<br/>