Mexico City airport races to finish $500m renovation as the 2026 World Cup nears

MEXICO CITY: With the 2026 FIFA World Cup less than a month away, thousands of passengers arriving at Mexico City’s Benito Juárez International Airport are greeted by a chaotic construction site of buzzing drills, scattered pipes and unfinished flooring.
The construction work coexists with hundreds of posters promoting the soccer tournament, as well as large-scale figures of soccer balls and trophies, which help passengers forget the inconveniences caused by renovations that have dragged on for a year.
Seating beside one of the six cranes remaining at the Terminal 1 entrance, 28-year-old engineer Luis Ibarra says he isn’t bothered by the renovations. After all, he noted, the airport has suffered for years from flooding, leaky roofs and severe overcrowding.
The countdown to complete one of the largest renovations at Mexico’s largest airport has more than 3,000 people working 20 hours a day, airport authorities told The Associated Press.
It has not been an easy task.
One year into the renovation — with the first phase over 90 percent complete — complications have been “more than we expected,” Juan José Padilla, general director of the Benito Juárez International Airport, told the AP.

He explained that the unexpected challenges stemmed from half-century-old infrastructure and a lack of original blueprints for some areas.
“We are facing years of neglect,” said Padilla, acknowledging that years of underinvestment had affected the terminals handling some 120,000 daily passengers.
Against this backdrop, work began in May 2025 on a $500 million modernization project. The massive undertaking is fully funded by the airport itself, which has been administered by the Mexican Navy since 2023.
Project coordinator Capt.