The group responsible for the San Miguel de Allende airport, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Amigos de la Aviación de San Miguel AC, have received notice from the government of the state of Guanajuato that they are being provided with additional government funds to continue the improvements to the airport. We have been providing the Amigos group with letters to assist them with their efforts and we are happy to see that their persistence has paid off in being able to obtain additional government support. San Miguel is a fantastic destination and these improvements will provide General Aviation pilots easy access.
Over the coming months the airport may be temporarily closed while the improvements take place. Anyone planning to go to San Miguel should contact the Amigos BEFORE attempting flight to make sure that the runway is available.
We flew over SMA this past Saturday 09-FEB-2013 on our way back from the FEMPPA meeting in San Luis Potosi (MMSP) and got a bird's eye view of the additional improvements being made to the airport. The runway is now paved along its full length. and there is work underway on the parking ramp. We are looking forward to the completion so thatwe can land on the new runway.
I contacted the Comandante of the SMA airport this morning (22-APR-2013). Although the re-pavement work has been completed, the airport remains closed awaiting approval of the DGAC. They expect that this will take approximately another month to obtain.
The improvements that were made include extending the runway to 1,500 m (4,920 ft) and paving the taxiway and ramp area. However, the thickness of the asphalt is only 4 CM (1.6 inches) thick versus the 7 cm (2.8 inches) that was originally planned.
Celaya and Queretaro continue to be the other two options for going into SMA. There is still no AVGAS in Celaya, otherwise everything remains the same. In MMQT, there is AVGAS but unless you use the AirBusiness FBO, MMQT is not a particularly GA friendly airport.
We checked again today with the Comandante of the San Miguel airport to determine the status. He informs us that they still have not painted the runway and still have to install new windsocks in order for the DGAC to approve the re-opening of the airport. He believes that they should complete the work this week and then request the inspection from the DGAC.
This project is now going into its seventh month and things seem to be progressing veeerrrryyyy sloooooowwwly.
We checked again today and the airport remains closed while the paperwork works its way through the DGAC. The operators of the airport were at DGAC headquarters today pushing the paperwork through. We will contact them again next week.
Once again we checked in to see that status of the airport and regrettably, it remains closed due to more paperwork issues with the DGAC. We will continue to monitor.
Hi Kipp, as of last week, despite all of the work that was done, the airport is still closed. Rusty Henson in SMA is getting involved again with the local authorities to get the process moving again. Rusty has been out of Mexico for a while and his absence was sorely missed as he was a real driver behind the efforts.
We are just as disappointed that the airport is still closed because it is only a short hop from where we live and we have not been able to use it since the work began over a year ago.
