The head of the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT), Jorge Nuño, no longer sees any obstacle for the Mexican aeronautical authority to return to category 1 before the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, in its acronym in Spanish). English) in the middle of next June and assured that Aeroméxico, Volaris and VivaAerobus have already expressed their interest in opening some 22 routes to that country.
Despite his enthusiasm, after a couple of years of degradation, he is clear that the benefits will be reflected until the winter season, because, contrary to what he expected at the end of 2022 —when he predicted that the long-awaited recategorization would take place this May— , summer has been lost.
In an interview, he does not offer further details about the destinations or the terminals involved, but he does mention that there are no more spaces at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) and he considers that a good alternative would be the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), although it is also foreseeable that there will be more activity in Cancun and Guadalajara.
The last word will be with the airlines, who will attend to their business vision.
After the publication in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) of the modifications to the Civil Aviation Law (those made to the Airport Law say that they are not related to the return to category 1), he received a questionnaire of 316 questions from the FAA, which has already been resolved and sent on May 4.
The questions had to do with different topics: laws, regulations, organization, training, procedure, certification, surveillance, problem solving and all that. They have already received our information and we are ready for them to come on May 15 to do the last technical evaluation and check if the last three non-conformities were met, as has already been done. They will take the documentation collected and the FAA will issue its recommendation, which will be passed on to the US Departments involved for their approval,” he explained.
During the talk with El Economista, in a meeting room of the SICT offices in the south of Mexico City and with an image of Benito Juárez in the background, the official reiterated that the collaboration between the authorities of the two countries is total and for this reason he had the possibility of requesting that the return be in the shortest possible time: June.
If everything goes as planned, by protocol, Mexico will be officially notified of its return to category 1 through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE).
The cabotage, the military airline…
Jorge Nuño arrived at the SICT in March 2021 as Undersecretary of Infrastructure, two months before being downgraded to category 2. In September 2022 he was appointed office manager at the secretariat and in November he was appointed secretary.
As head of the unit, in October 2022 he made his first working visit to Washington with FAA officials to present a work plan and learn directly what were the requirements to be met.
The secretary does not go into detail if his predecessors had done the required tasks and chose to develop his strategy to follow hand in hand with the Undersecretary of Transportation, Rogelio Jiménez Pons, and the new head of the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC), Miguel Enrique Vallin.
Along this path, it was decided to include recommendations from the national airlines, the main ones affected, for example, the issue of medical examinations.
As a great final stage, Mexico had to make the necessary modifications to the Civil Aviation Law to provide greater powers to the AFAC and incidentally, the initiative included issues that were not related.
Why did the issue of cabotage, that of the State airline and the assignments get involved if they had no link with the category?
The issue of cabotage was because it was one of the many tools that we thought of in order to reduce ticket prices. We saw that while it might have an effect, it wasn’t going to have a major impact. We decided to say that it wouldn’t help that right now. Afterwards, what the President of the Republic asked for was an evaluation for later. The changes in the Civil Aviation Law are intended to be able to resolve category 1 issues, in the Airports Law it was defined that it could have an airport and an airline to be able to give way to the state airline that is created.
After the publication in the DOF, the airlines did not spread a display or statement to congratulate the authority, give encouragement… How is the relationship?
As my dad said: no one has to congratulate you for doing your job. That’s how I see it. The relationship with the airlines is good. We are working.
What was missing to comply with the FAA?
Of the 52 non-conformities that the FAA presented after the downgrading, only three remained (which were resolved with the changes to the Civil Aviation Law) and they were related to:
- Laws that allow to regulate and supervise the certification and the continuous supervision of the medical evaluations of the aviation personnel.
- Conduct regulatory investigations after every aviation accident and incident.
- Give AFAC legal and regulatory authority to issue medical certificates.
