A new international airport is not quite ready for takeoff

It is almost impossible to find water to drink throughout the entire, spanking new airport. The unfinished access roads still need signs, compelling confused drivers to reverse down the freeway. The only transnational flight scheduled for the foreseeable future is from Venezuela. With much fanfare and few logistical considerations, the Felipe Ángeles International Airport, north of Mexico City, was unveiled on Monday, the first of many large-scale infrastructure projects that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised to deliver before his six-year term ends in 2024. The airport’s opening might seem premature, but it comes just weeks before a referendum on whether the president should step down well in advance of the end of his mandatory single term. López Obrador appeared eager to deliver on at least one of those promised projects before the vote. “It’s a work of the people,” López Obrador said at the inaugural ceremony, as supporters chanted “yes he could!” The airport’s long-term success could significantly influence the prospects of the party he started roughly a decade ago, Morena. But for now, the airport, like many of the president’s big-ticket projects, may not offer as many economic or political benefits as he hopes. The projects include a giant new oil refinery, which would be coming at a time when production is falling for the state-owned petroleum company, and the Tren Maya, a train that will take tourists from the beaches of Cancún deep into the Yucatán Peninsula. “These infrastructure projects are not viable and will be subsidized by the government for years to come,” said Denise Dresser, a prominent political scientist and columnist based in Mexico City.<br/>