On February 2, 2023, the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation of the Government of Mexico published the decree for the closure of operations for cargo airlines at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM).

As a result of the application of this decree, all air cargo operations from Mexico City are transferred to the recently inaugurated Felipe Angeles International Airport (AIFA), which has a terminal of 345 thousand 881 square meters, with capacity to receive 350 thousand tons of cargo per year.

The previous operation from the AICM had 130,000 square meters and according to figures from the end of 2021, it mobilized 570,000 tons of cargo. Reducing the saturation of the capital's air terminal was one of the most used arguments for the change.

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From the real estate point of view, this action will bring movements of greater demand in the submarkets surrounding the new facilities, since the main companies that are moving require new logistics for the storage and distribution of their merchandise.

Currently, the industrial real estate market in Mexico City has two submarkets, Zumpango and Huehuetoca, which could be positively impacted in the medium term. These submarkets currently have only 5% of the industrial inventory of Mexico City, while the so-called CTT (Cuautitlán, Tultitlán and Tepotzotlán) and Toluca group 44% and 43%, respectively.

If we review the geographical distribution of the Mexican capital, the AICM located in the vicinity of the Ixtapaluca submarket had shorter distances to the center of the city, while the areas of influence of the submarkets such as Zumpango and Huehuetoca are much closer to the main stores and ships that we located in the CTT.

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At present we can see that the CTT is practically saturated, which is why the most experienced developers in the region had already evaluated potential areas in Zumpango since the previous year, a submarket that would be closer to AIFA. Various institutional developers direct their resources towards the Zumpango-Huehuetoca axis as an axis of potential growth.

One factor that will benefit Huehuetoca-Zumpango is the scarcity of land to develop in the CTT, which will trigger the search for new real estate options.

The transfer of logistics operations to the north of the Valley of Mexico will be successful to the extent that the logistics platforms have sufficient, accessible and safe infrastructure, which allows offering good prices for merchandise. The processes of consolidating and distributing merchandise for this new location will have an impact both on demand and on the industrial constructions that are required to complement development in this area.