Mexico City, Mexico — President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) announced that the upcoming Tulum International Airport will be built in the municipality of Tulum and not in Felipe Carrillo Puerto as was speculated.
AMLO clarified his statement Friday during a morning press conference. He made the clarification during a presentation regarding the Maya Train.
“The purpose of the train, for those who arrive in Cancun, is so they go down into everything that is in the Mayan region. As the Cancun airport is so full, the construction of a new airport in Tulum is about to begin. It will have a capacity to receive 4 million visitors,” he explained during his Maya Train presentation.
He recognized that the south of Quintana Roo has been previously abandoned with development only in the northern region. “The south also exists, go down to Felipe Carrillo Puerto, the heart of the Mayan area,” said AMLO adding that “the train’s route will go down to Carrillo Puerto then to Bacalar, which is a beauty, and then to Chetumal, to Xpujil, the limit of Quintana Roo with Campeche. There is a dispute over this strip that will be resolved by the SCJN, but fortunately it is going well and the current limits are respected.”
The new Tulum International Airport is expected to be constructed between the Ejido José María Pino Suárez and Muyil, approximately 25 kilometers southwest of Tulum and 70 kilometers northwest of Felipe Carrillo Puerto.
In February, AMLO stated that both the Maya Train and the new Tulum International Airport are expected to be operational sometime in 2023. Mexico’s president announced the construction of the new Tulum airport in October of 2020.