Almost a year after the flights dedicated to air cargo were moved from the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) by presidential decree, the vast majority of which were directed to the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) , users expect the incoming federal government, headed by Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, that a new agreement be reached that gives access to this activity again at the capital’s airport.
Helmut Mueller, general manager of TME21 , indicated that having only passenger aircraft in the AICM is a limitation .
“Currently we receive passenger planes, which are large planes, but they have no comparison with cargo planes. We believe that there are the necessary arguments for the authorities to reconsider and distribute the burden more at airports,” he said in an interview for T21.
Currently, TME21 has an infrastructure of two thousand 700 square meters (m2) in the AICM to provide storage, custody and handling services for merchandise, however, it now also operates in the AIFA with the help of its strategic partner INCOME.
Mueller comments that they expected the change that occurred last year to be a gradual move, however, many sectors were affected.
“All customs agents and cargo agents have suffered a lot, we have had to make changes in personnel, there are people who have lost their jobs because they do not want to go to AIFA, it is further away and more expensive,” he said.
However, the manager looks optimistically to the future, which is why he hopes that, with the new administration, foreign trade will grow, that investments that were stopped will be reopened and that this will allow merchandise traffic to increase.
According to the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC) , in the first five months of the year air cargo in Mexico grew 7% compared to the same period in 2023, going from 480,436.3 tons to 514,90.8 tons.
In these data, the AIFA was the one with the greatest growth during this period, registering 182 thousand 985.6 tons , against the five thousand 828.7 tons it handled during last year; while the AICM reported the largest drop, going from 245,644.1 tons to 96,270.9 tons, a drop of 60.8 percent.
In addition, Rigoberto López, Regional Cargo Manager Americas of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) , assured that errors must be corrected regarding the planned expansion of the AIFA cargo terminal , especially because competitiveness was lost in the migration of freighters. in international connections, in addition to causing cost increases due to duplication of operations, a situation that is repeated with customs agents, with two warehouses carrying out the same processes.
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