A new passport office with the capacity to attend to 1,000 people per day has opened at the Tijuana International Airport.
Accompanied by Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda, Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard formally opened the office on Tuesday.
It is located on the ground floor of the airport’s parking lot building.
“The new office will provide an express passport issuing service to those who need to replace this document,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) said in a statement.
“It’s estimated that it will attend to more than 350,000 people a year, with a capacity of 1,000 people per day,” Ebrard said.
The SRE said that people who need an emergency passport will be able to get one in less than an hour.
The ministry noted that the Pacific Airport Group, which operates the Tijuana airport, invested over 40 million pesos (just over US $2 million) in the new office, which will operate seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“With the commencement of operations of this office, Baja California becomes the second state of the republic … [with] three passport offices, after Mexico City,” the SRE added.
Ebrard emphasized the speed with which the new office issues passports. It’s an “express” office of a kind that “almost doesn’t exist anywhere in the world,” he said.
“It’s even quicker than the fastest [passport] office outside airports,” the foreign minister added.
Ávila, a Morena party governor who took office just over a year ago, said that the new passport office is “another example of the extraordinary projects we can complete when we … work as a team.”
In opening the office, the SRE is meeting “the demands, needs and requirements” of Tijuana, she said after claiming that the city has the “most dynamic” border in the world.
One of the Mexico-U.S. border crossings in Tijuana is the Cross Border Xpress, which gives airline passengers direct access into Tijuana airport from San Diego county and vice versa.
Ávila also said that Mexico is “one of the few countries in the world” that issue passports the same day as applications are lodged.
All Mexican citizens can make appointments to get a passport at the new office at Tijuana airport, regardless of whether they are airline passengers. Click here to access the SRE’s appointments website.
Mexico News Daily
