Martha Martinez / Reform Agency
Thursday, April 20, 2023 | 22:31
Mexico City.- The Chamber of Deputies approved a reform that allows the Mexican State to operate airlines and airports.
The plenary session of San Lázaro endorsed with 256 votes in favor and 219 against, from the Opposition, modifications to the Airports Law and the Civil Aviation Law that authorize the head of the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation to grant assignment titles to parastatals of the Federal Public Administration so that they can provide the regular national air transport service.
The reform also facilitates that, from this figure, parastatals can manage, operate, exploit and even build airports without having to undergo a public bidding process.
According to the modifications, the assignment titles will be for an indefinite period and the only cases in which they can be canceled are that there is no longer a cause of public utility, public interest, general interest, social interest or for reasons of national security.
The project was divided into two votes: the first referring to the legal modifications aimed at recovering Category 1 air safety -approved with 470 votes in favor and one abstention- and the second on the figure of the allocation, where PAN, PRI , PRD and Movimiento Ciudadano spoke out against it.
During the debate, in which the reservations presented by the Opposition were discarded one by one, legislators warned that the reform not only damages the country’s aeronautical sector, but also opens the door to unfair competition.
PRI member Ildefonso Guajardo said that putting Mexican money into a state airline is throwing money away, because in the long run it would become a regressive subsidy and recalled that government airlines have failed.
“Let’s not throw the scarce money of the Mexicans in a project that has no future,” he demanded.
Guajardo warned that the reform is in violation of economic competition laws, in addition to the fact that the legislation prevents giving service providers control of strategic inputs, which opens the risk that the approved legal modifications will be lost in appeals.
“By eliminating article 29 of the Airport Law, we are opening the possibility that an airline may own more than 5 percent of the shares of an airport, clearly generating a problem of market concentration,” he said.
The former Secretary of Economy recalled that with the creation of Segalmex, the Government of Morena “occurred to play the little store”, generating shortages and an embezzlement of 17 billion pesos, for which he regretted that now they intend to “play at the little planes”.
“If his project becomes a reality, the cost of the famous presidential plane that was raffled off three times and that is there, costing a fortune, will be peanuts, compared to the losses that it will cost the people of Mexico,” he said.
PRD member Gabriela Sodi said that the reform is a risk not only because it opens the door to unfair competition, but also because it broadens the Government’s margin of discretion with respect to instructions and military management, an institution that is already opaque, by making use of terms such as “national security reasons”.
“We are facing the nationalization of the national airspace and not only that, we are witnessing another step towards the militarization of public life in this country,” he said.
He warned that the reform raises the idea that the owner of the airline could also be the owner of the airport, which will generate asymmetries in the market, affecting not only the existing airlines, but also the national economy.
“The temptation of the subsidy for it to work will be there, as shown by the public money that is wasted every day to maintain the Felipe Ángeles Airport, which is another fiasco,” he added.
PAN member Carlos Madrazo said that what the project seeks is to make the Felipe Ángeles Airport useful.
“This opinion only seeks to make useful a disastrous work called Felipe Ángeles Airport, an aircraft plant where sometimes a plane lands,” he said.
Madrazo called on unions and workers in the tourism and aviation sectors to demonstrate and prevent the political management of both industries.
The emecista Manuel Herrera affirmed that the modifications are nonsense, because they allow because they prevent there being an even floor for private airlines and those that would be owned by the State.
Herrera affirmed that the opinion is opaque, because it indicates that the allocations will be granted for reasons of public utility, but it does not indicate the criteria from which this condition will be determined.
He warned that the modifications make the State judge and party, because one side will be able to manage and operate airports and, on the other hand, it will have its own airline, which goes against the opinion of the Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece). , which recommended not approving the allocation figure, because it would put competitiveness at risk and generate undue advantages for the State.
He also regretted that the majority intends to assign a new task to the Army and the Navy, by now abrogating the provision of air services, which distracts them from their main functions.
The president of the Infrastructure Commission, the PT Reginaldo Sandoval, pointed out that what is sought with a State airline is to cover the connection of flights where the private initiative does not enter.
He said that for the so-called Fourth Transformation, State intervention and investment in public companies is required, since the only thing that matters to private companies is utility.
“A State company is required to cover the connection of flights where the private initiative does not enter, because it is only interested in utility and that is what it is about, that we give powers to the AFAC to authorize public companies to manage airlines and airports, that is the underlying issue,” he reiterated.
