Four months before the start of operations at the new airport in Mexico City, potential users can get an idea of the new facility thanks to video footage posted on social media by a well-known journalist.
TV, radio and print journalist Manuel López San Martín posted a series of videos on Twitter that show different parts of Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), including its terminal building and control tower .
Built by the military on the Santa Lucía Air Force Base located approximately 45 kilometers north of downtown Mexico City in the municipality of Zumpango, Mexican State, the airport is expected to begin its operations at the end of March. Low-cost carrier Volaris announced last month that it would operate services to and from the facility from March 21, 2022.
Above a video that crosses the exterior of the terminal, López San Martín wrote that AIFA “is not the disaster that some people are selling”.
He described the 80 billion peso (US$3.8 billion) airport as an “impressive” and “good quality” project built in record time.
Lo dije hace 8 meses que estuve aquí, lo repito a 4 meses de su inauguration ✈️
El #AIFA non es el disaster que algunos venden
Es obra imponente, desarrollada en tiempo record, de buena calidad…
El reto: connectivity to Santa Lucia. If resuelve, funcionará. If not, fracasará pic.twitter.com/U3eibAWUHg
— Manuel Lopez San Martin (@MLopezSanMartin) November 19, 2021
President López Obrador, who canceled the previous government’s airport project after a legally questionable referendum, inaugurated work on AIFA at the end of 2019.
López San Martín said the airport will be a success as long as it has good, cheap and fast land connections to Mexico City. He posted a video showing construction work on a new road that will connect the airport to the capital.
“There are thousands of people working against the clock inside and outside Santa Lucía,” the journalist wrote.
Another video shows a waiting area and elevators and escalators in operation inside the terminal, while López San Martín filmed even more footage from the 88-meter-tall control tower, which was designed to look like a Náhuatl weapon called a macuahuitl – a wooden mace with inlaid obsidian blades.
The reporter also posted a video that shows a range of other infrastructure and attractions on the airport grounds, including a shopping mall, hotel, hospital and a “cultural corridor” with three museums and train carriages. histories reused.
The architect who designed the airport, Francisco González Pulido, said in late 2019 that crossing it would be a “memorable experience”.
Este es el edificio terminal del #AIFA by dentro
¿Como lo ven? ¿Opinions? pic.twitter.com/TdKNtspQA6
— Manuel Lopez San Martin (@MLopezSanMartin) November 19, 2021
Construction of the facility, which is around 80% complete, is part of a three-pronged plan to ease pressure on Mexico City’s existing airport, which was used by 50.3 million passengers in 2019 before air traffic collapses in 2020 due to the pandemic. The federal government is also modernizing the airport in Mexico City and that of Toluca, in the State of Mexico.
The AIFA will have an initial capacity of 20 million passengers per year, but it could eventually accommodate up to 80 million.
✈️ Desde la Torre de control del #AIFA. Así se ve el nuevo aeropuerto
-88 meters above sea level
-the obra holds an advance of más del 80%
-podrán operar tres pistas de manera simultánea
-the terminal building is more than 1 km wide
-hay 99 positions for ala fija aircraft pic.twitter.com/URec84hTXx
— Manuel Lopez San Martin (@MLopezSanMartin) November 19, 2021
With reports from El Universal and Reporte Indigo
