AIFA Transported 1.05 Million Passengers Since Opening

The Felipe Angeles International Airport (AIFA), Mexico City’s newest airport, has transported more passengers than initially forecasted. The airport has transported over 1.05 million passengers since its initial opening in March 2022, says Isidoro Pastor Román, General and Director, AIFA.

Pastor forecasts that the airport will transport 1.3 million passengers in its first year of operations, from March 2022 to March 2023. He added that the airport recorded 8,992 air operations as of Jan. 23, 2023. About 1,800 passengers had used private aviation services. Most of the airport’s flights headed to the EU, Central and South America and within Mexico. 

"As you know, we started operations on March 21, 2022, with only six routes, 12 daily operations and we currently have an average of 60 operations, we have 14 national routes and four international ones,” said Pastor according to A21. 

AIFA began operations in March 2022 amid controversy. From the start, the airport aimed to attract air traffic to the saturated Mexico City International Airport (AICM). AIFA operated 4,461 flights from March 2022 until Oct. 19, 2022, accounting for 415,000 passengers, as reported by MBN. Pastor highlighted that new strategies were implemented for airlines to operate and to develop a space for passengers to efficiently receive baggage and security. 

AIFA may see a surge in operations once cargo is banned at AICM. Last week, a leaked preliminary draft said that authorities will ban cargo operations at AICM to improve mobility for passengers, as reported by MBN. Another opportunity will be the recovery of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Category 1 rank. “Once we recover Category 1, which will likely happen in June of this year according to data from the aeronautical authority, we will already have routes to North America,” says Pastor. 

AIFA highlights that it has a capacity for 119,571 annual operations, 28 contact positions, 12 remote aircraft parking positions, three exhibition positions, 26 helicopter positions and 10 cargo positions. The airport is currently used by Volaris, Viva Aerobus, Aeroméxico and Conviasa, according to AIFA’s official website.