AMLO wants you to decide the fate of Mexico City airport

The future of the 250bn-peso (US$13.2bn) international airport currently under construction east of Mexico City will ultimately depend on public opinion.

The announcement was made by president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) at a press conference, as he gave further details on the process that will help the government decide whether to continue the ongoing works at a high cost for the government, cancel them and replacing the airport with AMLO's alternative of two additional runways at Santa Lucía military airport linked to the existing airport or tender the development and allow private investors to fund construction with their own resources.

AMLO said that he will hold a meeting Wednesday evening with a team of technical experts he commissioned to carry out audits on the megaproject, so that they can submit their report on the analyses conducted.

This document will then be turned over for comment to the engineering associations AMLO met last week, which will be given a deadline to submit their respective recommendations, while the president-elect's team simultaneously holds meeting with other technical experts.

Those meetings will be followed by sessions to discuss all of the alternatives for the project and to analyze the experts' proposals, which will be made available to the media.

"The debate in the media will be open to all those who have something to say. The topic will then be put to public consultation so that it will be the people who decide on this and all topics that are a matter of public interest," AMLO said.

The results of the public consultation, which AMLO said could take place in the last two weeks of October, will be binding for the future government once it takes office on December 1. The method to be used for the consultation has yet to be defined.

"It could be a survey, which is still a public consultation, looking to make it as broad and objective and as close to reality as possible. Another method could be to install polling centers to collect citizens' opinions," AMLO added.

"The results will be binding. Whatever comes out of it is what we will do," he underlined.