At the end of 2023, the Guadalajara international airport will handle 17.5 million passengers for the first time in its history, while the supply of seats will reach 21.5 million, said the director of the air terminal, Martín Pablo Zazueta.
During the Advisory Commission meeting, he specified that from January to November 2023, the airport received more than 16 million users, representing a growth of 15% compared to the same period of the previous year. In addition, there was an 8.6% increase in seats offered by airlines.
Zasueta Chávez anticipated that in January of next year the works on the second runway will be completed, which will be in operation between March and April 2024, with which the Guadalajara airport will increase its capacity by 50% to be able to handle up to 60 operations per hour, and He compared it to the Mexico City International Airport (AICM), which starting in January, he said, will have 43 operations per hour.
“The runway is the airport’s flagship project. It will be 3,538 meters long, 45 meters wide, with segregated operations, which means that they will not be simultaneous, but it will increase our capacity by more than 50%,” commented Zazueta Chávez.
Third runway planned
In an interview, the director of the Guadalajara airport stated that the air terminal has land available to continue growing its capacity, both in the infrastructure of the cargo and passenger terminal, even with a third runway.
“Today we are already planning to grow a third runway, but we see it in 15 or 20 years, not for this moment. In other words, whatever infrastructure is required, we already have the land and we no longer have complications in that sense,” stressed Martín Zazueta.
Competitiveness factor
“Because of nearshoring and the attraction of investments, because of the attraction of more and better-paid labor to this region, basically the airport is going to be a key factor of competitiveness, we cannot be a bottleneck, we have to move forward in the needs and enter the virtuous circle of being able to be another cog in the economic growth that the region needs, said, for his part, the general director of the Pacific Airport Group (GAP), Raúl Revuelta Musalem.
Source: El Economista
