The battle for Aguililla: 27 believed killed in massacre by Jalisco cartel

April 6, 2021

In a show of force, presumed CJNG cartel members paraded this armored truck through the streets of Aguililla, Michoacán on Monday. — In a show of force, presumed CJNG cartel members paraded this armored truck through the streets of Aguililla, Michoacán, on Monday.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) is believed to have killed as many as 27 members of a rival criminal organization in a massacre in Michoacán last week.

The Twitter account Unidad de Inteligencia Ciudadana (Citizens’ Intelligence Unit) said in a post last Wednesday that 26 members of the Cárteles Unidos were killed by the CJNG in Aguililla, a municipality in the notoriously violent Tierra Caliente region and the birthplace of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, leader of the CJNG and a wanted man in Mexico and the United States.

The news website Infobae reported that the death toll from the massacre could be as high as 27.

Above three graphic photographs showing slain bodies and decapitated heads, the Citizens’ Intelligence Unit wrote that members of the Cárteles Unidos of Aguililla surrendered to the CJNG during a confrontation and were subsequently executed.

“Eight of them were beheaded. The regional boss Chirrios Revueltas managed to escape,” the post said.

The Michoacán Attorney General’s Office (FGE) announced last Thursday that eight decapitated bodies had been found in Aguililla.

The FGE has not refuted reports that as many as 26 or 27 presumed criminals were massacred.

It said the eight decapitated bodies, all of which bore gunshot wounds, were taken to a state government morgue, where autopsies were to be carried out.

However, the bodies — and possibly those of the alleged additional victims the Michoacán government has not publicly acknowledged — disappeared from the morgue, according to media reports and the Citizens’ Intelligence Unit.

A post by the latter said last Thursday that 26 bodies and eight heads had disappeared from the morgue.

“Family members of the Cárteles Unidos of Aguililla gunmen who were massacred by the CJNG are asking for help to make it public that the bodies that were moved to the morgue disappeared and [that the authorities] don’t want to hand them over anywhere,” the post said.

Scars of a cartel war: graffiti message on a wall in Aguililla.

Presumed CJNG members were again flexing their muscles in Aguililla on Monday, arriving in the municipal seat in the early morning. El Universal reported that the heavily armed cartel members entered via the community of Dos Aguas despite an army and National Guard checkpoint being located there.

Their arrival at the municipal seat caused some residents to flee their homes in fear, according to media reports. A video posted to social media showed an armored CJNG vehicle and a black SUV that also allegedly belonged to the cartel driving through the streets. Social media posts also said that gunshots were heard starting early Monday morning.

“Be careful, bullets are falling on houses …,” said one post on Facebook. However, there were no reports of additional deaths on Monday.

The news website Sin Embargo reported that seizing control of the municipality, which occurred either Monday or last month according to different media reports, is an “enormous trophy” for the CJNG. It said that a range of different criminal groups — including the Milenio Cartel, the Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar cartel) and more recently the Viagras — have previously controlled it.

“Local organized crime forces have defended this point, even from the Mexican government, because it’s the entry to the Tierra Caliente [region], …where the drug is cooked,” Sin Embargo said, apparently referring to the manufacture of illicit substances such as methamphetamine and fentanyl.

Although some media reports said the CJNG seized Aguililla on Monday, there is evidence that the cartel, generally considered Mexico’s most powerful criminal organization, has been in control of the municipality for some time.

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A video in which members of the cartel show off an armored “narco-tank” in broad daylight in El Aguaje, a town in Aguililla, surfaced on social media a month ago. The tank, towed by an armored vehicle emblazoned with the CJNG initials, was apparently seized from the Viagras.

A report published in March by the newspaper El País said the CJNG had seized control of Aguililla after waging a war against rival organizations for months, if not years. It was reported in late 2019 that El Mencho wanted to return to his home town and that the CJNG was making preparations for that to occur.

The Jalisco cartel has also recently attacked several other towns in Michoacán’s Tierra Caliente region. According to a report by the news website Zeta, armed men routinely arrive in Michoacán towns and shoot up public buildings, including government offices, police stations and schools, as well as businesses and parked cars. If they see any members of rival criminal groups, they attack them as well.

The CJNG’s goal is clear: to control as much territory in Michoacán as it can. Zeta said that a “new war” is taking place in the state, with new offensives every day. The CJNG is determined to take control of all illicit activities, including drug trafficking, kidnapping, fuel theft and extortion, according to Zeta.

Meanwhile, ordinary residents are terrified of the criminals and the violence they generate. Some have even resorted to digging trenches across highways in an attempt to stop the CJNG from entering their communities.

But efforts to thwart the cartel’s Michoacán incursion, including those by government security forces, have not stopped the organization from expanding its influence. For its part, the CJNG has said in videos posted online that it will “liberate” Michoacán residents from the stranglehold of other criminal groups.

However, for many residents, the increased sway of the CJNG in the state certainly doesn’t feel like a liberation.

Violence has long been a problem in the state, Mexico’s largest avocado producer and home to the important port city of Lázaro Cárdenas – through which drugs and other illicit goods pass, but according to many analysts, the situation is worse now than it has been for years. According to Zeta, there is not a single one of Michoacán’s 113 municipalities where crime and violence isn’t a problem. Some, however, are far worse off than others, with frequent outbreaks of violence on the streets.

Among the most violent are Uruapan and several Tierra Caliente municipalities, including Tepalcatepec, which has also seen CJNG massacres, and Aguililla.

Source: Infobae (sp), El Universal (sp), Reforma (sp), Sin Embargo (sp)

University completes restoration of Leonora Carrington’s home

MND Staff

April 5, 2021

British surrealist artist Leonora Carrington in her Mexico City home in 2010.

With painstaking attention to detail, the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) has restored and replenished the Mexico City home of Leonora Carrington, a British-born artist who called Mexico home for almost 70 years.

The 431-square-meter three-level home where the artist lived for more than 60 years before her death in 2011 will eventually open its doors to the public, but 360-degree virtual visits will be possible as of Tuesday on the Casa Estudio Leonora Carrington website.

After purchasing the home that Carrington shared for part of her life with her Hungarian-born photographer husband Emerico Weisz and two sons, UAM began the project to restore it in 2018.

Now, according to a report by the newspaper El Universal, the house appears just as it did when it was home to Carrington — an acclaimed surrealist painter and multimedia artist who was born in Lancashire, England, in 1917.

Her artworks, including her own, are displayed throughout the home; her erstwhile clothes are in her closet; black and white family photographs abound; the bookcase is filled with the books she owned and the same cooking spices she frequently used are on the kitchen shelves.

In short, the home, which is also filled with Carrington’s furniture and a wealth of other personal belongings, is just as the artist liked it.

“This is not a museum, it’s a home study. It’s an academic and cultural project,” Francisco Mata, UAM’s communications coordinator, told El Universal.

“… Lenorora Carrington lived here with her family. … The house itself is a great document [of her life]. It contains her objects, books, letters, diaries. … It contains domestic items — her hair clips, combs, glasses — and, of course, her artistic work,” he said.

Indeed, there are 45 of Carrington’s sculptures spread throughout the house, located on Chihuahua Street in Roma, a neighborhood a few kilometers west of Mexico City’s historic center.

“We know that there are Leonora museums in San Luis Potosí and Xilitla, [but] our project [shows a more] intimate [side of] Lenora’s life,” Mata said.

“What we show is everyday Leonora — the Leonora who had tea in the morning, the Leonora who got up to paint, the Leonora [who loved her] cats and plants,” he said.

“The objects in the house and their context … can be of great relevance to researchers, not just of Leonora but of the Surrealist era — of exile, of literature. For us, this space becomes a node that intersects with different sectors, not just academia but also culture and tourism,” Mata said.

Alejandra Osorio, who led the project to restore the house to its former glory, said the restoration is now 100% finished but the home won’t yet open to the public due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The restoration, much of which was completed during 2020, included painting the home, repairing floors, building a new staircase and rewiring. All told, UAM spent about 12 million pesos (US $590,000) to purchase and restore it.

During the restoration, more than 8,600 objects were removed from the home and fully catalogued, Osorio said. Many of them will be digitalized so that researchers and others interested in Carrington’s life and work can examine them online.

The beginning of virtual tours on the website — which is already partially operational — on Tuesday coincides with the 104th anniversary of the artist’s birth. Her work and personal objects have been displayed in countless exhibitions, including recent ones in Mexico City and San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato.

Source: El Universal (sp)

8 police in Jalisco believed responsible for disappearance of family on vacation

MND Staff

April 5, 2021

The Zapopan couple disappeared in Acatic.

Seven of eight officers on the Acatic police force in Jalisco have been detained in connection with the disappearance of five family members who were traveling home to Zapopan last month after vacationing in Mexico City.

Attorney General Gerardo Octavio Solís explained that eight arrest warrants had been ordered for the crime of forced disappearance.

“Early data which was obtained in the course of the investigations suggests the very probable participation of some of the Acatic police force in the disappearance of these people,” he said.

A police report was filed March 25 for the disappearance of Julio Alberto Villaseñor Cabrera, 35, Jimena Romo Jiménez, 24, their 1-year-old daughter Julia Isabella, Alberto’s sister Virginia Villaseñor Cabrera, and their nine-year-old son.

After the family got lost somewhere in the Altos Sur region, a search operation was initiated in the municipalities of Tepatitlán, Jalostotitlán, San Miguel El Alto and Acatic. Officials are confident that it was in the last municipality that the family disappeared.

“In some localities like Jalostotitlán, Tepatitlán and some others where they had been traveling, they will have only been somewhere they were passing through and it’s very probable that here is where it happened. It’s documented in some early data and for that reason there’s a great many [investigators] working here in this area,” the Attorney General said.

A total of 200 officers have been deployed to find the family.

The motive for the disappearance has not been determined, but there could be a connection to an armed attack which took place days earlier in Guadalajara.

“That person who was assaulted with a gun in the city of Guadalajara, four days earlier in a direct attack, has a very close relationship with two of the disappeared people. So it is very probable that the events were related, but we are still not totally sure,” the Attorney General’s Office added.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Private-sector health workers claim they’ve been ignored in vaccination program

MND Staff

April 5, 2021

Private healthcare workers protest Thursday in Mexico City.

More than 630,000 Mexican health workers have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 but some private sector medical personnel say they have been forgotten by the federal government.

Health workers employed in private hospitals and clinics protested in Mexico City last Thursday to demand that they too be given access to the vaccine and protected against the disease which has sickened and killed countless patients they have treated over the past year.

The protest occurred near the Naval Medical School in Coyoacán after word spread on social media that public sector health workers were receiving vaccine shots at the facility on Thursday.

More than 1,000 private sector health workers arrived at the school with the hope that they too would be able to get a shot. Some were inoculated but many more were still in line when an official announced that the supply had run out.

Instead of quietly leaving, the private-sector doctors and nurses staged an impromptu protest on the Eje 3 East thoroughfare, blocking traffic including city buses running along route 5 of the Metrobús system.

The disgruntled medical workers questioned why they have been ignored by the government when they attend directly to Covid-19 patients and are exposed to the risk of infection on a daily basis.

“We’re private [sector] doctors who are demanding the vaccine,” Karla Dam told the broadcaster Televisa.

She explained that she and other private sector health workers arrived at the Naval Medical School after they heard on social media that vaccines were being administered there.

“We arrived here and they gave us hope that we would be vaccinated but in the end they said no,” Dam said.

“They told us there were no vaccines … [and] that seniors are the priority,” said Lourdes Castillo, a private sector anesthetist.

Leobardo Castro, manager of a private clinic in México state, questioned the priorities of the government, which said in January that its vaccination plan considered private sector health workers but failed to explain clearly when they would get their shots.

“We’re risking our lives when we could be protected,” he told the EFE news agency.

“It’s very sad that there are retirees, seniors, teachers and [health] professionals who are not on the front line who are already vaccinated against Covid and that people who work in the private [health] sector and are at risk [of exposure from infected patients] are not,” Castro said.

In light of the protest, Mexico City government official Juan Gutiérrez said that the protesting workers had a “legitimate demand” but noted there were only 500 vaccine doses available at the Naval Medical School event and they were used to inoculate public sector medical personnel.

The Mexico City Health Ministry subsequently said that frontline private sector health workers who went to the facility did receive a vaccine shot later in the day after additional doses arrived.

Xavier Tello, a Mexico City-based health policy analyst, raised concerns about the vaccination of private sector health workers almost three months ago.

In a January 10 article published on the business and careers website LinkedIn, Tello wrote that many private sector doctors and nurses – some of whom lost colleagues to Covid-19 – had asked him the same question: “When will we be vaccinated?”

After noting that the question was valid, the analyst asserted that the government hadn’t provided a clear answer. Almost three months later, some private sector medical personnel continue to ask the same question, and haven’t yet received an unambiguous response.

“… It’s not difficult to understand that private hospital personnel who are exposed to Covid patients have exactly the same risk of infection as staff who work in government institutions. It’s the same virus, with the same danger,” Tello wrote before questioning why all frontline health workers – both private and public – weren’t being prioritized for simultaneous vaccination.

Although there are still health workers who aren’t protected against Covid-19, Mexico’s five-stage vaccination program, which began December 24, is accelerating after virtually stalling in February due to a lack of supply.

Just over 9 million vaccine doses had been administered by Sunday night, according to Health Ministry data which indicates that the lion’s share has gone to seniors. About 14.67 million vaccine doses made by five different companies including Pfizer, AstraZeneca and SinoVac have arrived in the country, meaning that just over 60% of those received have been used.

Meanwhile, Mexico’s accumulated case tally rose to 2.25 million on Sunday with 1,263 new cases reported and the official Covid-19 death toll increased by 136 to 204,147, a figure that the government acknowledges is a significant undercount.

Source: Infobae (sp)

With asparagus season now peaking, it’s currently affordable and delicious

Janet Blaser

April 5, 2021

Right now is arguably the best part of the asparagus season in Mexico.

Asparagus seems to be everywhere right now; there’s another month of the growing season in Mexico, and the market is flooded with beautiful young asparagus at more-than-reasonable prices. Here in Mazatlán, I paid 18 pesos for a bunch of a dozen lovely, bright-green young stalks. (I don’t remember the weight.)

Look for stalks that are fresh and not dried out; if your grocery store displays them standing upright in a little water, that’s the best. After washing and disinfecting, snap the stalks wherever they naturally break, discard the bottom part and then proceed with your recipe.

Thinking I’d make a chilled asparagus salad, I roasted the asparagus in the toaster oven with a drizzle of good olive oil and a little salt and pepper. After about eight minutes, I tested a stalk — and almost ate them all!

Roasting or grilling asparagus gets rid of the characteristic bitterness and is as easy (or easier) than steaming them. I like to use asparagus in quiche and frittata, omelets, salads and, of course, as a side dish with just about anything. It’s also great in stir-fries and pairs particularly well with mushrooms.

Asparagus is a big money-making export crop for Mexico because of its consistent high quality and because it’s harvested when not much is available from elsewhere. Most of it is grown in the Sonora municipality of Caborca, on the uppermost eastern side of the Sea of Cortés near the Arizona border.

Roasting asparagus is a quick and easy way to get your veggies.

The season is from December to April, so we’re right at the peak. Take advantage of this abundance by freezing several (or many!) bunches now — directions below.

How to freeze asparagus:

Wash stalks and snap off root ends.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and blanch asparagus for 2-4 minutes, depending on thickness of stalks, until tender-crisp.

Immediately drain asparagus and plunge in an ice water bath for 2-3 minutes to stop cooking. Drain.

Flash-freeze stalks by spreading them in a single layer on cookie sheets and freezing for 1-2 hours. (Using parchment or wax paper will make them easier to remove.) Transfer to freezer bags or containers.

Simple Roasted Asparagus

Serve this as a side dish or use as the base for your other asparagus recipes.

1 bunch asparagus spears, trimmed
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp black pepper
Optional: 1½ Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese, minced garlic, 1 Tbsp. lemon/lime juice

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Place asparagus in a single layer on baking sheet or pan. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and Parmesan or garlic, if using. Bake about 8-10 minutes till tender-crisp.

If desired, drizzle with fresh lemon or lime juice just before serving.

A creamy dipping sauce takes this battered treat to a whole new level.

“Country Fair” Deep-Fried Asparagus

Perfect with a cold beer for Happy Hour or lunch!

Vegetable or peanut oil (as needed)
1/3 cup beer (cold and flat)
1 egg white
6 Tbsp. flour
¼ cup cornstarch
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. black pepper
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
1 ½ lbs. asparagus (cleaned and trimmed)

Heat 1 inch of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.

Whisk together beer, egg white, flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, salt and pepper in a flat dish or pan big enough for asparagus spears to fit in.

Dip spears in batter one at a time; fry for about 2 minutes or until golden brown. Sprinkle with salt, and serve with mayo or a creamy dipping sauce.

Spaghetti al Limone with Asparagus

1 lb. spaghetti
⅔ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed, sliced diagonally
4 garlic cloves, minced
Four 3-inch-long strips lemon zest
½ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
8 fresh basil leaves, chopped or whole
2 lemons, halved
1 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for serving

Cook pasta al dente. Drain, reserving 1½ cups pasta cooking liquid. Heat oil in a large heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add asparagus and cook, stirring, about 1 minute. Add garlic, zest, and red pepper flakes; cook, stirring, about 30 seconds. Remove from heat.

Add pasta and basil to pot with asparagus mixture and return to medium heat. Squeeze juice from both lemons into pot, add 1 cup pasta cooking liquid and Parmesan.

Cook, mixing well; add more pasta liquid if needed, until sauce is creamy and emulsified, about 1 minute. Season with salt.

Divide pasta among bowls, place a lemon strip in each. Top with more Parmesan.

The light crisp of asparagus adds a perfect contrast to spaghetti.

Chilled Asparagus with Sesame-Ginger Vinaigrette

1 lb. asparagus, trimmed

Dressing:

1 Tbsp. toasted sesame seeds
1 clove garlic
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
2 Tbsp. rice vinegar
2 Tbsp. orange juice
2 tsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. sugar
¼ tsp. red chile flakes
¼ tsp. sesame oil

Roast or steam asparagus till tender-crisp; immerse in ice water to stop cooking. Pat dry.

Arrange on platter and chill in refrigerator. Just before serving, mix together dressing ingredients and pour over asparagus.

Janet Blaser is the author of the best-selling book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, featured on CNBC and MarketWatch. A retired journalist, she has lived in Mexico since 2006.

3 police officers ambushed and killed in Oaxaca Sierra

MND Staff

April 5, 2021

The police vehicle after Saturday's ambush.

Two municipal police officers and the police chief of San Pablo Coatlán, Oaxaca, were ambushed and killed Saturday by armed men who burned their bodies and the vehicle in which they were traveling, according to the state Attorney General’s Office.

At the site of the ambush state police and forensic investigators identified bullet shells from an R-15 rifle.

The region, located in the Sierra Sur, is known for drug cultivation and the presence of armed criminal groups. However, agrarian disputes over the borders between municipalities are also common, such as that between and San Pedro Coatlán and San Vicente Coatlán.

In November 2019 in the same jurisdiction a state police patrol was also gunned down, killing five police officers. Four people with links to criminal groups were later arrested.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Centennials — aged 18 to 24 — will play a big role in elections this year

MND Staff

April 5, 2021

Young people at a demonstration in Mexico City.

The results of municipal, state and federal elections in June could depend heavily on the political preferences of young people, some of whom will be voting for the first time this year.

According to the National Electoral Institute (INE), there are more than 14.68 million people aged 18 to 24 who currently have a voter ID card and are therefore eligible to vote in the June 6 elections, at which Mexicans will renew the entire lower house of federal Congress and elect municipal and state representatives, including 15 governors.

The cohort — made up of Generation Z members who are also known as digital natives and centennials — is the largest of any age bracket, according to INE data, meaning that if they go to the polls in large numbers, they could have a significant say in deciding who will govern in the coming years.

More than 3.6 million of those in the 18–24 bracket are 18 or 19 and therefore will have their first-ever opportunity to vote.

The second-largest cohort of eligible voters is those aged 25–29, numbering more than 11.37 million.

Consequently, there are just over 26 million eligible voters aged 18 to 29, a figure that accounts for about 28% of the almost 94 million voters.

Given their large numbers, young people are an important and attractive segment for candidates, said Rubén Darío Vázquez, an academic at the National Autonomous University.

He told the newspaper Milenio that many young people don’t have clear political allegiances so their votes are up for grabs by the various political parties that will contest the elections. Parties’ success or otherwise will depend on their capacity to persuade undecided voters to cast their ballot for them, Vázquez added.

“The parties should be very interested in convincing these first-time voters,” he said. “… But the political actors haven’t found the way to approach them.”

Vázquez predicted that parties will have a hard time winning the support of young voters, many of whom spend a lot of time online, because they must struggle to keep up with the different ways young people communicate.

“The political class is only just understanding, and [still] with certain tentativeness, how to communicate on Facebook. … They haven’t realized that Instagram now dominates in the millennial community and that there is a new generation of voters on TikTok,” he said, referring to the video-sharing social networking service.

The academic nevertheless predicted that political advertising will flood social media during the campaign period, which officially began on Sunday. The bombardment of information will test young people’s analytical skills, he added.

“They’re digital natives, but they don’t necessarily have the skills to … distinguish between correct and incorrect information. One example of this was Pizzagate … in the 2016 presidential election in the United States, in which a rumor about a supposed people-trafficking and child pornography ring [operated by] the Democratic Party was believed by a large number of social media users,” Vázquez said.

This year’s elections will be the largest ever in Mexico. The ruling Morena party is seeking to maintain its majority in the lower house of Congress while opposition parties, three of which have banded together, are determined to wrest control and thus scuttle President López Obrador’s legislative agenda.

Among the 15 states where voters will elect new governors are Baja California, Chihuahua, Guerrero, Michoacán and Zacatecas.

Source: Milenio (sp)

2 environmentalists murdered in 1 week in Guerrero, Oaxaca

MND Staff

April 5, 2021

Two environmental activists with political ties have been brutally murdered during the past week in Guerrero and Oaxaca.

Jaime Jiménez Ruiz, a former municipal agent in the town of Paso de la Reina known for his activism defending the Río Verde river, was shot and killed March 28 while en route to the town from nearby Santiago Jamiltepec.

The murder was the fifth this year in Paso de la Reina, a community of approximately 500 inhabitants 120 kilometers from the tourist destination of Puerto Escondido.

The environmental organization Educa Oaxaca, which has fought large scale hydroelectric and mining projects, said that neither state nor federal authorities have taken preventative measures despite the killings of two citizens on March 14 and 15.

“[Paso de la Reina] suffers under despotic authoritarianism and impunity, which are the structural causes of the violent deaths of five of its citizens this year,” the organization said in a statement.

In Guerrero, meanwhile, Carlos Marqués Oyorzábal, municipal commissioner of the Las Conchitas community in San Miguel Totolapan, was killed by armed men Saturday while traveling on an ATV to the nearby community of Ciénaga de Puerto Alegre. He was tortured, killed and dismembered.

Marqués belonged to the communal Pueblos Unidos organization, dedicated to protecting forest land. It has previously obstructed trucks from entering the region to extract timber.

Another local citizens group said that despite threats, residents will continue to obstruct access by logging trucks.

Sources: Reforma (sp)

Air travel rebounds: Mexico-US summer flights up 6%

MND Staff

April 5, 2021

Cancún will be the most popular destination, with direct flights arriving from 40 US airports.

The pandemic may not be over but air travel between Mexico and the United States is nevertheless set to rebound strongly in 2021.

In the seven-month period between the end of March and the end of October – the International Air Transport Association’s summer season – a total of 151,900 flights are scheduled between the two countries.

That’s a 6% increase compared to the same period in 2019. (Yes, you read correctly.)

According to aviation data company Cirium, 13 airlines will fly regular routes between Mexico and the United States this summer season. They are American Airlines, Aeroméxico, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Delta, Frontier, Spirit, Sun Country, United, Viva Aerobus, Aeromar, Southwest and Volaris.

Collectively they’ll offer almost 23 million seats on flights between the North American neighbors.

René Armas Maes, commercial vice-president and associate at Midas Aviation, a consultancy, told aviation news website Simple Flying that the Mexico-United States market is currently the largest binational air travel market in the world.

“Currently, the Mexico-U.S. cross-border market remains the largest country pair, representing 2.5 times the amount of capacity of the next biggest country pair,” he said, adding that he expects the status quo to continue throughout 2021.

Simple Flying reported that the strong rebound of the Mexico-United States market is directly linked with leisure and VFR (visiting friends and relatives) travel. International travel to Mexico has been encouraged by the absence of restrictions for arriving visitors, who don’t have to provide evidence of a negative Covid-19 test result or go into mandatory quarantine.

Armas noted that many U.S. travelers – a significant number of whom have likely already been vaccinated against Covid-19 given that more than 165 million doses have been administered in that country – are planning Mexican beach vacations to destinations such as Cancún, Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta.

Cancún will be the most popular destination this summer, according to data that also shows that 11 of the 13 airlines that fly between Mexico and the United States will provide services to and from the airport in the Caribbean coast city. All told, there will be direct services between Cancún and 40 airports in the United States, among which Los Angeles International Airport and Dallas-Fort Worth International will have the most connections.

Among the other popular Mexican destinations this summer will be Los Cabos, Mexico City and Guadalajara, according to Cirium data. Several airlines, including Viva Aerobus and Spirit, have recently announced new Mexico-U.S. services.

Although the number of flights scheduled between the two countries over the coming months is good news for the tourism sector, which had its worst year in living memory in 2020, Armas warned that things could change.

He explained that many airlines file flight schedules well in advance and subsequently adjust them according to demand and the profitability of their different routes. The vaccination programs in the United States and Mexico, where more than 9 million doses had been administered by Sunday night, will help to increase demand for air travel but new outbreaks of the coronavirus will have the opposite effect, Armas said.

Source: Simple Flying (en)

Air traffic changes create new noise problem in south Mexico City

MND Staff

April 5, 2021

A redesign of flight patterns into Mexico City's airport means new daily headaches for some city neighborhoods that had never dealt with noisy jets flying overhead.

The noise of landing airplanes approaching the Mexico City airport’s two runways is no longer exclusive to the neighborhoods of Moctezuma and Jardín Balbuena.

Residents of neighborhoods in the south of the city, near the beltway, say they are newly being exposed to the decibels resounding from jet turbines overhead.

That’s due to a redesign of routes used by Mexico’s air navigation service, in which a new approach has been added in the south of the capital to accompany those in the city’s north, above Ciudad Satélite, Lomas de Chapultepec and Nápoles.

The change went into effect on March 25, when the Ministry of Communications and Transportation announced the first phase of an overhaul of air traffic routes to and from the international airports in Mexico City and Toluca, México state. The changes won’t likely be perceptible to travelers, but officials predict they will help reduce by 16% the flight time of aircraft operating in the city’s airspace, as well as reduce operational delays, optimize takeoffs and landings and reduce plane fuel use.

The second phase will go into effect in March 2022 with the expected opening of Mexico City’s new Santa Lucía airport.

The redesign will also allow the use of performance-based navigation, which will permit the three airports to operate simultaneously without getting in each other’s way and increase route efficiency.

But the change means more noise for residents unaccustomed to hearing aircraft.

Live air traffic radars show the new movements through Xochimilco, Tlalpan, Coyoacán and Álvaro Obregón.

“Residents of Jardines de Pedregal and Tepepan had told me of the noise that just a few weeks ago wasn’t there,” said Jimena de Gortari, an academic who specializes in urban noise pollution at Universidad Iberoamericana, “and now I know for a fact that in Villa Olímpica, airplanes are passing frequently during the day and at night.”

Jardines del Pedregal’s neighborhood representative Roberto Bustamente explained that for residents there, the noise was a new phenomenon.

“For us, this is significant because we were accustomed to silence — that’s to say it was a characteristic of Jardines del Pedregal, but now we have the sound of planes above us,” he said.

San Ángel resident Úrsula Camba said that while she was already aware of the movement of airplanes above the neighborhoods of Nápoles and Narvarte when they circle as they queue to land, now it is a daily occurrence.

“From early morning, they start to fly over. They wake me up, and I can’t get back to sleep,” she said.

De Gortari said that a lot of people are used to the noise of airplanes and road traffic, and to an extent, the noise is a normal part of the city.

“Now I have a lot of complaints from people whose peace has been disrupted because they are not adapted, but in reality, there is no adaptation, only stress, discomfort and a series of symptoms caused by the noise,” she said.

Evelin Flores, a resident of Tepepan, located between Tlalpan and Xochimilco, said that in addition to the jet noise, the planes interfere momentarily with the telephone and television when they pass over.

“The passing of planes started two weeks ago. Before then, one could hear the sound of the birds in the morning or in the afternoon, but now that we have the noise, we can’t hear them anymore,” she said.

Source: Reforma (sp), Forbes México(sp), Aviaciónline (sp)

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