The Continent’s Biggest Airport Project Hits Turbulence
It’s already taking shape on a dry lake bed near Mexico City, but the country’s presidential front-runner wants to stop it.
What’s going to happen now?
Photographer: Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images
One expects to encounter gigantic new airports under construction in East Asia, or along the Persian Gulf. In North America, not so much: Denver International Airport, which opened for business in 1995, is the last big-time, all-new airport to have been built on this continent.974 Lack of available space near big cities, environmental concerns and political obstacles have all stood in the way of building more. This unwillingness or inability to create new “aerotropolises,” as University of North Carolina business school professor John Kasarda has dubbed the economic hubs that grow up around major airports, risks becoming a competitive disadvantage.
But wait! There is a giant new North American airport in the works. It’s probably not where you’d expect, though.