Photo: Felipe Ángeles International Airport

By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

Mexico’s new, three-runway Felipe Ángeles International Airport is set to open on Monday, March 21, with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador AMLO) doing the ribbon-cutting honors.

The airport, one of AMLO’s key vanity megaprojects, will have four confirmed carriers operating, the Mexican lines, Volaris, Viva Aerobus and Aeroméxico, plus the Venezuelan carrier Conviasa, which will fly from Caracas.

Viva Aerobus is slated to be the first airline to officially land at the new hub, arriving  from Guadalajara, Jalisco, at 11:30 a.m. Monday.

Between Volaris, Aeroméxico and Viva Aerobus, more than 11,000 weekly seats will be available for passengers who choose to use the new airport.

The installations of the new airport will also include a museum, since when the Mexican Army began retrofitting the Felipe Ángeles military base into a commercial airport, it found the remains of over 60 mammoth elephants.

During its first phase of operations, the Mexican government said that the new airport could receive up to 20 million passengers per year, although aviation experts have predicted that it will only receive 2.4 million passengers during its first 12 months of operations.

Most international airline carriers have refused to accept using Felipe Ángeles because its construction has been plagued by numerous setbacks and controversies, and some analysts say that it is less safe and more expensive than using the Mexico City International Airport.

Initially, the new airport, which is under the charge of the Mexican Army, was supposed to cost

In this project, in charge of the Mexican Army, 84 billion pesos, but its current price tag is 11b billion pesos so far, that is, 38 more than projected.

It is also much further from downtown Mexico City and has poor ground communications infrastructure services.