Cozumel, QR – After the green light, the construction of the International Airport Cozumel will begin. The construction project consists of an expansion with which the facility can absorb additional flights.
On October 1, the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) approved the environmental impact declaration, so that the construction of the airport could continue.
On Friday, Pablo Arjona, administrator of the Cozumel International Airport, organized a press conference in which the project was described. According to Arjona, over 330 million pesos are spent on the expansion of the airport to enable additional domestic and international flights to increase an increase in air traffic.
The project will be completed in two phases, one of which will be the expansion of the commercial platform and the other, the expansion of the terminal building. The expansion project is expected to take around three years.
He reported that the project would enable Cozumel Airport to obtain aircraft of category C like McDonnell Douglas MD-81, Airbus A318, A319, A320 and A321 and Boeing 737 aircraft.
A new building for rental vehicles and the fire and rescue corps is also part of the plans. The two-story building is built on a 1.6 hectare location with a final date for December 2026.
Arjona said that the new institutions with all its improvements will offer the airport the additional space he needs.
“With more space, more space is made within the terminals.
Arjona said that the airport was expecting an increase in air traffic from its currently three to five daily flights to up to 15. The increase is expected to start in the next few months and reach 17 flights per day at the weekend.
“Now we have an average of five flights a day, but we assume that this will increase from six to 12, 15 and 17 Saturdays in the coming months.
“Due to the current defeat, the flight capacity is an average of between 60 and 65 percent, which is low. We estimate and expect that 85 to 90 percent may reach the end of the year and that other airlines, especially domestic to 98 percent, will reach,” he said.
He said that Cozumel Airport is currently associated with Mexico City, Monterrey and Cancun as well as Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Miami. A new Calgary route was recently added.
The Cozumel Airport Expansion Project is expected to begin at the beginning of this year, but there were technical difficulties in relation to the logistics of materials and personnel, especially with regard to material costs.
The finished cozumel expansion project will enable the island airport to increase the number of annual passengers that it can receive from its current capacity from around 711,000 to around 1.2 million.