PULSE NEWS MEXICO

The cost of the construction of the still-abandoned, still-almost-impossible-to-get-to Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), one of the pet megaprojects of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López (AMLO), has doubled since work began on it in 2020.

Originally slated to cost 12.479 billion pesos, the train, which is intended to provide travelers with affordable access to the AIFA, increased to 25 billion pesos as of June 1 of this year, according to information from the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT).

Information obtained by the daily newspaper El Universal and published on Monday, Aug. 15, revealed that the cost of the expansion of Line 1 of the Suburban Train that will lead to the AIFA indicated that the Lechería-AIFA suburban branch of the railway will cost 25 billion pesos.

With this, between August 2020 and June of this year, the cost of the extension of the underground that will reach the new airport increased by 100.3 percent in two years, and the project is yet to be completed.

However, if the total value of the work is considered, including operation and maintenance costs, the full price of that segment of the train will be 35.557 billion pesos, 2.8 times more than initially planned.

The project is being financed by the federal government, which López Obrador has claimed to be under a program of “Franciscan austerity.”