Governor announces he is officially looking for a partner to build it
Northern Baja governor Francisco “Kiko” Vega just announced that the process to choose the company that will operate the new Ensenada airport has just begun. It looks like the project, that was so talked about, just got real.
We got a hint that the airport was becoming a reality when we heard that the government had already acquired land in Ojos Negros to develop it, but even then we weren’t so sure about it.
It looks like Kiko really stood by his words, he said almost at the beginning of his term that before his time in office was finished, the airport would begin construction.
The new airport will focus mostly on commercial transportation, but it will have a landing strip for national flights and plans to receive international flights shortly.
Governor Vega said that the airport is going to be developed and operated in a partnership between the state of Baja and a private company, this because the state lacks the resources to complete the project by themselves.
He said that even though the governor has the power to directly assign the project to a private company, he chose the more transparent method of opening the project for bids leaving the best and most cost-effective company that submits a proposal to win it. Good call on his part, considering the huge protests that happened at the beginning of the year where he was being accused of corruption and people were asking for his resignation.
The project consists, on its first stage, in a runway of almost 2 miles, a general services platform, hangars, a passengers terminal, control tower, fire and rescue station, fuel plant and parking area. Depending on the success of it, the governor says it could morph into an international airport in as little as 5 years after it begins operating.
Ojos Negros is located about 30 miles east of the city of Ensenada, and the new bypass (that hasn’t been completed yet) is going to help people drive from the new airport to the wine valley without even having to pass by the city.
