A federal judge stopped construction at the Santa Lucia airport and ordered that the abandoned project at Texcoco remain intact.
The Santa Lucia expansion, at a military base near Mexico City, is President Andres Manual Lopez Obrador’s plan to expand air travel capacity in the nation’s capital, while ditching a partially built new airport.
Lopez Obrador argued that the Texcoco airport was riddled with corruption and is geologically unsound.
The injunction responds to a suit by a group called #NoMasDerroches (No More Waste). The collective has filed 147 injunction requests designed to delay or foil the Santa Lucia airport plan.
Lopez Obrador called the action “legal sabotage.”
The government wants the Santa Lucia airport to go in service by mid-2021, a deadline widely seen as overly optimistic. But it doesn’t completely replace the existing airport, where passengers with connecting flights might take a shuttle bus 29 miles / 47 kilometers away.
With information from Reuters
