López Obrador makes the inauguration of the AIFA a campaign event

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, during the conference prior to the official inauguration of the new Felipe Angeles-Rodrigo Oropeza airport

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador got up earlier than usual this Monday to demonstrate in the first person that the new airport is not so far away.

At 5 in the morning, dodging the proverbial traffic of the capital of Mexico, López Obrador took just over 30 minutes to drive the 45 kilometers that separate the National Palace from the land of the State of Mexico where the new terminal stands .

From the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) he gave his daily morning lecture and took pride in the work: “mission accomplished”.

In less than three years since the works began, the president inaugurated one of his star projects on Monday.

At the end of the morning, he went up to the control tower from where he witnessed the landing of the first flight, coming from Tijuana, which inaugurated the two commercial runways, to which another one must be added for military operations.

Three Mexican airlines are already operating at the terminal.

After several disagreements, Aeroméxico has been the first to take off.

The AIFA is not just a remodeling of a military base.

The Army has built and will operate civil and commercial operations through a company whose management will be occupied by high-ranking military officers.

Accompanied by the Army staff, and to the cheers of the public that crowded the outskirts of the hangar, the president attended the inauguration speeches.

López Obrador did not participate in the main act due to the limitations due to the electoral ban imposed less than three weeks before the consultation for the revocation of the mandate is held.

The inauguration of this Monday has also served as a starting signal for a new electoral cycle in Mexico.

After the consultation for the revocation -scheduled for April 10- the state elections also arrive -June 15- in six entities of the country.

After the national anthem and before more than 1,000 guests, among others, a handful of secretaries of his Government and governors from Yucatan to Jalisco, General Gustavo Vallejo, one of the military engineers in charge of the project, once again recalled the speed of the work , “863 days and nights despite the pandemic”, in addition to underlining that the budgeted amount was not exceeded.

The cost of the work, so far, 2,600 million dollars from the public budget, without charge to debt, has been one of the most outstanding virtues of the project.

The amount is less than a quarter of the 13,000 million that the first frustrated project supposed, the Texcoco airport projected by the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto and canceled by López Obrador.

During the inauguration speeches, praise was repeated for Benito Juárez, the first liberal president of Mexico and one of López Obrador's historical fetishes.

By express indication of the president, the works quickened the pace to be able to inaugurate this Monday, Juarez's birthday, and wrap the act in greater symbolism.

The head of the capital's government, Claudia Sheinbaum, highlighted the contrasts between the canceled work and the new infrastructure, which she said "represents the spirit of the Fourth Transformation," the bombastic motto of the Morenista government.

Sheinbaum also spoke of "tenacity, rectitude and perseverance" when undertaking the construction of a new airport, a historic demand in the capital.

The International Airport of Mexico City (AICM) has accumulated an unsustainable saturation for almost two decades.

In 2019, the airport authorities warned that the situation exceeded the air safety minimums.

The new plan is to integrate the AIFA, located about 45 kilometers from Mexico City, within a metropolitan airport network that adds the AICM and an existing third base in Toluca, State of Mexico.

The main unknowns of the project have focused on connectivity and shared airspace.

The government's projections are that when the conglomerate is at full capacity, it will reach 159 million passengers a year, more than the forecast made for the canceled airport.

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