Global Courant
Mexico’s armed forces are taking control of the capital’s main airport and the government plans to relinquish military control of nearly a dozen others across the country as the president focuses on corruption and mismanagement.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has tasked the armed forces with a wide variety of non-traditional duties since being elected in 2018, raising concerns about the separation of the military and civilian life.
A year ago, a new airport was built by the military outside Mexico City at a cost of $4.1 billion. It is run by the military but little used. López Obrador says the old airport, the busiest in the country, will be operated by the Navy.
More than 1.8 million Canadians traveled to Mexico in 2022, according to Statistics Canada. CBC News has contacted the Canadian Embassy in Mexico City for more information.
The Navy took over the security of Mexico City International Airport, aka Benito Juárez, more than a year ago. Soon it will be in control of everything else from customs and immigration to baggage handling and bathroom cleaning, with the imminent publication of a presidential order to make that official.
The airport’s “deficiencies” include drugs and organized crime
The list of problems at Mexico City’s airport has long included large drug shipments and illegal migration. The infrastructure was in disrepair and a number of close calls were reported on the runways in recent years as the airport struggled to handle flights.
The airport also had a reputation for stolen luggage, poorly managed airline schedules, no-contract business, and corruption.
Meanwhile, during his tenure, López Obrador has asked the armed forces for help, giving them some immigration rights and control over ports and customs. The members are also building major infrastructure projects, such as a tourist train through the Yucatan Peninsula and a new airport in the same area. They even run plant nurseries and make tourist trips to a former penal colony.
Vice Admiral Carlos Velázquez Tiscareno, airport director, speaks during an interview Thursday at his office at Mexico City’s Benito Juarez International Airport. (Fernando Llano/The Associated Press)
The airport, which is used by some four million travelers each month, will become “a business within a naval-military entity,” Admiral Carlos Velázquez Tiscareño, the airport’s 73-year-old director, said in a recent interview. But, he said, “this isn’t going to look like a military branch.”
Unlike the capital’s other airport, Felipe Angeles, where National Guard troops take passenger tickets at the gate, at Benito Juarez, the only uniformed military personnel are the 1,500 Marines who have been deployed for security since February 2022. The rest of the airport staff will be civilians, but “with clearer rules… governing with more order and discipline,” Velázquez Tiscareño said.
The Navy will create a company called Casiopea to run the airport and six others that have “deficiencies” and are “owned by organized crime,” Velázquez Tiscareño said. Among them are Matamoros, across the Texas border, and Playa del Carmen on the Gulf of Mexico.
López Obrador has already said he plans to have a dozen airports in the hands of the army or navy by the end of his administration in 2024. And by the end of this year, the military will start operating its own commercial airline.
Blurred lines between military, civilian life
The Mexico City takeover goes against international aviation recommendations that make a clear distinction between military and civilians, said Rogelio Rodríguez Garduño, an aviation law expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. But the legal ramifications of the move remain unclear.
Earlier this year, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that the transfer of the National Guard from civilian to military control was unconstitutional. López Obrador left the watch under a civilian division but with a military operations chief.
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While the Navy’s operational control could help some safety problems, experts don’t believe it will solve other problems. The US Federal Aviation Administration downgraded Mexico’s aviation safety rating in 2021, preventing Mexican airlines from expanding flights to the US
FAA safety ratings from other countries are intended to measure those countries’ oversight of their airlines, but do not mean the airlines are unsafe.
In Mexico, corruption reached the point years ago that coded messages were sent using internal airport communications to thwart baggage inspections so drug shipments could go untouched, according to testimony at the US trial of former Secretary of Public Security Genaro Luna . He was convicted of drug trafficking in February.
“Quiet,” says airport employee
A private security officer checks a passenger’s luggage at a checkpoint at Mexico City’s Benito Juarez International Airport on Friday. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has asked the Navy to take control of some airports. (Fernando Llano/The Associated Press)
Mexico City has the country’s main airport and the Navy is the branch of Mexico’s security forces most trusted by US authorities, but the US has not commented on the growing power of Mexico’s military.
“There are several airports in the country that have had major problems for years and needed to be repaired,” says Velázquez Tiscareño, himself a retired pilot.
Over the past year, the Navy’s security oversight has stopped some illegal business at the airport, improved inspections and reduced stolen luggage, Velázquez Tiscareño said. Some airport employees confirm this, but also note that complaints about flight delays continue.
“The navy has things under better control, but now we have to see how they are going to work,” says José Beltrán, 72, who collects garbage at the airport.
“It’s quieter,” said Luis Martinez, who has worked at the airport for 25 years, helping passengers who need wheelchairs. But, he said, “people have the same complaints: flight delays and baggage problems.”
Rodríguez Garduño said Mexican aviation needs more money, more training and inspection regimes, among other measures, to increase its competitiveness on the global stage.
He said he wasn’t sure the military could help solve all those problems.
