In another twist in the soap opera that is the decades-long fracas over Guadalajara’s airport, a consortium of the Jalisco’s private industrial interests is threatening to use its clout with the government to move the transportation hub from its current location across the city’s massive metropolitan expanse to Zapopan.
The Consejo de Camaras Industriales de Jalisco (CCIJ) suggested moving the state capital’s airport during a meeting with Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, head of the Secretary of Communications and Transportation (SCT), which regulates the nation’s airport, among other things.
CCIJ’s proposal was presented as an alternative to paying the full compensation demanded by the farm collective (ejido) whose lands were expropriated by the federal government in 1975 for the current airport’s construction.
El Zapote, as the collective is known, claims the government still owes them 2.6 billion pesos for those lands, while the government assesses the same territories at 62 million pesos. In addition, the territory for a proposed second runway, heavily backed by private enterprise, is currently owned by the collective, who refuse to cede the land.
So far, the government hasn’t indicated whether the idea of moving the airport lock, stock and barrel is anything but a pipe dream.
However, the corporation that manages all of Mexico’s airports, Grupo Aeropuerto del Pacifico (GAP), has announced that if El Zapote won’t sell the land slated for the second runway’s construction, they’re in talks to buy land further south from a different collective, Santa Cruz del Valle.