The return of Mexico to Category 1 is uncertain. The Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT) has set out in its 2023 work program as a strategic objective to recover Category 1 in air safety before the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, in its acronym in English) of the United States, although it did not establish in which month it must be fulfilled.
A couple of weeks ago, the Undersecretary of Transportation, Rogelio Jiménez Pons, shared at a press conference that, according to the progress made, Mexico could leave category 2 at the end of June and not in April or May as had been assured. at the end of 2022.
The main obstacle to date, from his point of view, was the lack of approval in the Chamber of Deputies of the modifications to the Civil Aviation and Airports laws, including the option to authorize limited cabotage practices.
After the degradation of the FAA in May 2021, the SICT thought that at the end of that year the previous level would be resumed, so that national airlines would once again have the opportunity to increase frequencies and open new routes to the US.
However, the wait has been long (23 months) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) does not estimate that the return will occur in the short term. Its vice president for the Americas, Peter Cerdá, recently told El Economista that it will happen in the last quarter of this year.
The foregoing, despite the repeated request of airlines that it become a priority for the Mexican government to return to category and to be able to grow its business in the US market.
No cut-off dates
In the dependency’s work program, published last week, it is specified that “operational safety is a priority in the Transportation Subsector, particularly in air transport, this year Category 1 in air safety will be recovered, actions of regulatory improvement in the legal framework for the effective performance of Navigation Services in the Mexican Airspace”, but no date is set.
The document mentions that the agency’s activities to attend the IASA (International Aviation Safety Assessment) final audit, which will be applied by the FAA and which, depending on its results, will lead Mexico to recover category 1 issued by the FAA has an open deadline of execution: January-December.
In other words, there is not the same precision on the subject as that indicated, for example, for the completion of the main access works to the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), Tonanitla, for which it was specified that it would end in the first two months of the year, which was fulfilled and in February the work was inaugurated.
It also does not coincide with the completion tasks of the Santa Fe station, at the railway slab level, of the Mexico-Toluca train, which propose June as the maximum month and that is what is being worked on. Not even with the task of carrying out road safety audits of 1,130 km of federal highways in operation, which has a May-August execution period.
Among the actions to be carried out this year by the secretariat to return to Category 1 to the country’s aeronautical authority, it is written: Address the 39 non-conformities of the FAA Technical Review, in order to receive the IASA (International Aviation Safety) final audit Assessment) with an execution period of 12 months.
