La Jornada – Impossible, increase the airspace of the Valley of Mexico, says specialist

From a technical point of view, it is not possible to increase the airspace of the Valley of Mexico, even if the most recent technology is used, so when the flight traffic recovers its pre-pandemic level and the operations of the Santa Lucia International Airport are added , saturation is going to get complicated, said Jesús Ramírez Stabros, aviator pilot.

Through the Navigation Services in the Mexican Air Space (Seneam), the Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT) promoted the redesign of the airspace in December 2018, the first phase of which began on March 25.

However, the modifications have caused health discomfort, such as noise, among the inhabitants of 250 neighborhoods in Mexico City and the state of Mexico, for which, they, through injunctions, have requested that the agency change the air space.

Ramírez pointed out that Seneam decided to modify it due to the pressure due to the increase in the demand for flights.

He added that growth demands it, but the country’s capital only has one airspace. “It is not a problem of this government, it is not a fault that has to pay,” he commented.

The saturation of the airspace, he mentioned, was present for 10 years, although 40 ago it was already known that it would reach the limit.

The annoyances are caused by the authorities’ attempts to get more planes in the airspace, but he considered that this is “unchangeable. Technically there are no possibilities of making it grow more, according to the current technology and the one that is going to come in the near future ”.

He added that the orography of the Valley of Mexico complicates the situation, since it is limited by the Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes in the east; the Ajusco in the south, and in the west by the Sierra de Guadalupe, so the north is the only place that the capital has for the entry and exit of airplanes.

“Yes, there is more technology, better radars, but the airspace has a limit that we can expand through technology a little bit, but not much more. The demand for the possibilities of expanding the airspace is much greater ”, he pointed out.

This area, he commented, needs to be effective and efficient, so exceeding the limits it has in capacity is exceeding that of safety, which opens the risk of accidents.