Monday, June 23, 2025

Presidential decree removes cargo airlines from AICM

The federal government on Thursday published a decree that suspends cargo airline operations at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM).

Air freight carriers will have 108 business days to cease flights to and from the airport, according to the presidential decree published in the government’s official gazette.

DHL trucks at AICM
The international cargo carrier DHL had just opened operations in June. (Photo: Victoria Valtierra Ruvalcaba/Cuartoscuro)

That means they will have until July to move their operations away from Mexico’s busiest airport.

The decree doesn’t force cargo airlines to shift operations to the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) north of Mexico City, but that facility would be the most logical alternative.

President López Obrador has said that the new airport – one of his pet infrastructure projects — has the space and security conditions required by cargo airlines. Built by the army on an Air Force base, AIFA is located about 50 kilometers north of downtown Mexico City.

The decision to ban freight carriers from AICM was taken primarily to ease pressure on the facility, which the federal government last year declared had reached saturation point.

However, only about 3% of AICM flights in 2022 were for cargo, data shows.

The period the government has given cargo airlines to move operations away from the airport is significantly less than they were asking for.

Freight carriers requested a minimum of 180 business days to complete the move, although the Mexican company Estafeta specified 16 months as an ideal period of time.

Flights carrying both passengers and cargo will be allowed to continue using AICM, which was used by over 46 million passengers last year.

The federal government is eager to increase usage of AIFA, which has been in operation for 10 months but only serves a small number of airlines operating a limited number of flights.

There are currently no flights between the United States and AIFA, but that will change in May when Aeroméxico will commence a service to Houston.

The airline obtained authorizations from Mexico and the United States to operate the route, despite Mexico’s loss of its Category 1 air safety rating with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in May 2021. A consequence of being downgraded to Category 2 status was a prohibition against Mexican airlines adding new routes to the United States until Category 1 status is restored.

With reports from El Financiero, El Universal and Reuters 

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
Poverty rate in Mexico

Report: Mexico’s poverty reduction policies outperform all 37 OECD member countries

0
Government policies in Mexico helped reduce relative poverty by 3.9 percentage points from 2012 through 2021, whereas other member nations only saw poverty decline by one point in the same period.
Sheinbaum on Iran

Sheinbaum: ‘Mexico will always be a factor for peace’ after US-Iran escalation

1
President Claudia Sheinbaum on Sunday expressed opposition to war and called on the United Nations to lead a peacebuilding process after the United States military attacked three nuclear facilities in Iran.
An AI robot hand reaches out to touch a human hand

How do we make sure that AI doesn’t make us dumber? A perspective from our CEO

17
AI can make us smarter or it can make us lazier. CEO Travis Bembenek shares how Mexico News Daily is working to offer readers the good kind of AI.