Mexican leader angers airlines as military leads aviation overhaul
On a sunny Friday morning this month, the outdoor plaza at Mexico City’s new Felipe Ángeles airport was so quiet you could hear insects chirping, interrupted suddenly by the roar of three F-5 fighter jets overhead. The gleaming airport is the most visible sign of how Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has reshaped aviation in Latin America’s second-largest economy — by inserting the military across the sector and trying to push airlines to use his new hub. The process has put him at odds with domestic and international airlines and the US government, and so far has not lured much passenger traffic. Inside the terminal, none of the 100 check-in desks had a queue, while at arrivals a recruiting office invited scarce passengers to join the military. Old-school leftist López Obrador in 2019 tasked the defence ministry with building the airport at a cost of $5bn after cancelling a partially built one designed by architect Norman Foster, claiming that the project was plagued by corruption. Felipe Ángeles opened to great fanfare last year. The new airport — which is run by the army — is slick and airy but is also 44km from the city centre, with limited ground connections. Airlines say they have to set ticket prices so low to fill planes that they struggle to make money. About 7,700 passengers flew to or from the airport each day in July, compared with 90,500 at Benito Juárez, the capital’s saturated main airport. López Obrador is trying to change that. This month, the armed forces in Mexico will start selling tickets on its own commercial airline out of the new airport. At Benito Juárez, pure cargo operations were stopped by presidential decree this year, raising ire among US officials. Passenger flights were cut sharply in a second government decision in August, this time prompting a fierce backlash from international and local airlines. Peter Cerda, regional vice-president at airlines association Iata, said: “Making the unilateral decision of just pushing capacity somewhere else . . . without good analysis, particularly without collaboration with the industry and working together like it occurs in every other city around the world, that’s what’s been ineffective here. Ultimately the passenger is going to suffer . . . with less availability of flights, [fewer] destinations and higher prices.”<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2023-09-18/general/mexican-leader-angers-airlines-as-military-leads-aviation-overhaul
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Mexican leader angers airlines as military leads aviation overhaul
On a sunny Friday morning this month, the outdoor plaza at Mexico City’s new Felipe Ángeles airport was so quiet you could hear insects chirping, interrupted suddenly by the roar of three F-5 fighter jets overhead. The gleaming airport is the most visible sign of how Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has reshaped aviation in Latin America’s second-largest economy — by inserting the military across the sector and trying to push airlines to use his new hub. The process has put him at odds with domestic and international airlines and the US government, and so far has not lured much passenger traffic. Inside the terminal, none of the 100 check-in desks had a queue, while at arrivals a recruiting office invited scarce passengers to join the military. Old-school leftist López Obrador in 2019 tasked the defence ministry with building the airport at a cost of $5bn after cancelling a partially built one designed by architect Norman Foster, claiming that the project was plagued by corruption. Felipe Ángeles opened to great fanfare last year. The new airport — which is run by the army — is slick and airy but is also 44km from the city centre, with limited ground connections. Airlines say they have to set ticket prices so low to fill planes that they struggle to make money. About 7,700 passengers flew to or from the airport each day in July, compared with 90,500 at Benito Juárez, the capital’s saturated main airport. López Obrador is trying to change that. This month, the armed forces in Mexico will start selling tickets on its own commercial airline out of the new airport. At Benito Juárez, pure cargo operations were stopped by presidential decree this year, raising ire among US officials. Passenger flights were cut sharply in a second government decision in August, this time prompting a fierce backlash from international and local airlines. Peter Cerda, regional vice-president at airlines association Iata, said: “Making the unilateral decision of just pushing capacity somewhere else . . . without good analysis, particularly without collaboration with the industry and working together like it occurs in every other city around the world, that’s what’s been ineffective here. Ultimately the passenger is going to suffer . . . with less availability of flights, [fewer] destinations and higher prices.”<br/>
