SICT Guarantees Funding for Aviation Safety
The Secretary of Infrastructure, Communications, and Transportation, Jesús Esteva Medina, has stated that aviation safety issues will never lack the necessary resources.
The federal official noted that they are awaiting a funding proposal from the Federal Civil Aviation “Next year, we will request from the Ministry of Finance whatever AFAC asks of us, and that will go to Congress, which will ultimately approve it,” said the head of the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications, and Transportation (SICT), adding that if Congress does not grant a favorable response regarding Agency (AFAC) for next year.
It should be noted that for fiscal year 2026, the AFAC was allocated a budget of 657.5 million pesos, an amount that, according to the sector, was insufficient for the tasks it must carry out.
Regarding the audit conducted by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as part of the International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) Program, the secretary noted that it was submitted in a timely and proper manner.
The secretary noted that the work was intense: “The FAA appreciated the attention given to the process, because it was a very short timeframe to provide information, so it was a tremendous effort by AFAC staff, as audits are something that strengthen our organization.”
As the President said, we must not become complacent, arguing that everything is being done very well, “regardless of whether there are things we need to acknowledge, but rather always look for ways to improve and identify areas of opportunity.”
“So now we'll have to wait for the results next October,” he said.
Esteva Medina spoke about the demands of the air traffic controllers, regarding which meetings were held with the undersecretaries of Transportation and Revenue to review the requests.
He noted that progress has been made in the talks, that more positions have been created, and he emphasized that the important thing is to have air traffic controllers already trained to fill those positions
During his participation in the Forum, the federal official commented that, regarding airport infrastructure, the combined investment will total US$7.91 billion; airport terminals will be modernized, two new airports will be built in Tepic and Puerto Escondido, and three new radar systems operated by SENEAM will be installed.
