New runway to double flight capacity at Mexican hot spot

A second runway and a giant new control tower opened this week at the Cancun airport, doubling the flight capacity at the popular Mexican Caribbean resort region, its operators said.

The airport, which saw more than 12 million passengers last year, will now be able to handle more than 80 takeoffs and landings per hour, said the Group of Airports of Southeast Mexico organization (ASUR).

“It will be able to satisfy the estimated demand for the coming decades,” a press release stated.

Cancun will be the only Mexican airport able to carry out simultaneous takeoffs and landings, due to a 4,659-foot separation between the two airstrips, ASUR said.

The new 318-foot control tower will be the highest in Latin America, the company added.

Cancun, however, is still struggling to convince visitors to return, thanks to this year’s bout with H1N1 and an ongoing violent drug war that’s severly hurt tourism in the area.

Hotel occupancy is currently at 45 percent, compared with an average of 60 percent in the same period in recent years, a tourism insider said.