09 March 2023, Merida, Mexico – Together with airport executives, and civil and aeronautical authorities, CIFAL Merida has met in the city of Merida Yucatan, to review with specialists from the National Hurricane Centre, and renowned meteorologists, the processes of preparation of airports for their immediate reopening in case of being impacted by a tropical cyclone.

As happens every year, before the start of the hurricane season in the Pacific and the Atlantic, ASUR's Merida International Airport, through CIFAL Merida, convenes the eighteenth edition of the international hurricane seminar, which was inaugurated this morning in the Yucatan capital.

Throughout these eighteen years of the international hurricane seminar, we have been able to determine, as airport administrators and authorities, the importance of working in these networks of continuous work for prevention. Our experience leads us to conclude that airports cannot become merely centres of refuge and that operations must be reactivated safely as soon as possible to allow the arrival of humanitarian aid, that employees and their families must have their emergency plan with the support of their organizations, and only in this way can we minimize the impact of natural phenomena that could affect us as an industry, said Mr Héctor Navarrete Muñoz, Director of Regional Airports of the ASUR group.

The inaugural speech was given by Fernando Rosel Flores, Assistant Secretary of Prevention and Social Reinsertion on behalf of the State Governor Mauricio Vila Dosal, you can count on the State Government for the Coordination of Prevention and thus work together as one, before any affectation of this type of natural phenomena.

As part of the programme of presentations on the first day, high-level speakers were preset, such as Dr Lixion Avila, an associate specialist from the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Dr Omar Garcia from the Institute of Astronomy and Meteorology of the University of Guadalajara, Dr Patricia Ryan CEO of Decision Services International LLC, Mr Carlos Rodoli and Mr Manuel Real from the Northern Airports of the Dominican Republic, and the National Coordinator of the National Meteorological Service, Ms Alejandra Mendez Giron.

With this outstanding event, CIFAL Merida continues with its commitment to promoting the sustainable growth of the air transport industry aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.