The Mexico City International Airport (AICM) agreed with the airlines to provisionally reduce its operations for this year’s winter season, which will go from the current limit of up to 61 operations per hour to 52, a reduction of fifteen%.
The reduction will be made in the saturated schedules, which include from 7:00 a.m. to 10:59 p.m., and will come into force as of October 31, with the purpose of “improving the quality of care services for the general public. ”.
“This agreement was agreed upon during the Second Extraordinary Session of the AICM Operations and Schedules Committee, headed by Vice Admiral ret. Carlos Velázquez Tiscareño, in his capacity as president, and in which the majority of the airlines of this terminal participated,” the airport reported in a statement.
The resolution will be put to the consideration of the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC) for its final approval, and once accepted, it will be communicated to the operators and organizations of the AICM.
The measure is taken after several months of talks about a possible reduction of operations at the capital’s airport.
In March of this year, a declaration of saturation of the AICM terminals was issued in the Official Gazette of the Federation, in which the Airport Schedules Coordination was instructed to review and even modify the general bases for the assignment of schedules of landing and takeoff (also known as slots ) in “airports in saturated conditions”.
By May, the authorities were evaluating a decree to reduce operations at the AICM by up to 21%, with which they sought to go from 61 operations to a threshold of 48 to 50 flights per hour. In addition, it was proposed to move some flights to the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), inaugurated on March 21 of this year.
“Right now we are doing a calculation; we have to start with cargo [flights], charters, with excessive flights, new airlines, in short, everything that is apparently superfluous, and then we start with all the airlines,” Rogelio Jiménez Pons told the media at the time. undersecretary of transportation “We have to see how much can be allocated to other places, particularly AIFA, because it is ready, but Toluca, which worked very well, and other alternatives can also be opened.”
Although the decree was denied by the authorities, a few days later an agreement was announced between the Ministry of the Interior and the airlines to increase the 12 operations that the AIFA housed at that time to 100 daily operations, with which they would move to the new airport. domestic cargo flights, charters, as well as those of debtor airlines with the capital airport.
