Mexico City - Mexico's plans to build a new mega International Airport of Mexico City (AICM) are a step forward after awarding construction of access roads to the terminal and after selecting a group of companies for a varied of consultancy projects.

Mexico's giant construction company Civil Engineers and Associates (ICA for its Spanish initials) was awarded to build access roads for the first stage of the new airport. The project is estimated to cost around $9,430 million MXN ($620 million USD).

Airport Group of Mexico's City, responsible for the successful completion of a new airport, gave the contract to ICA through a direct contracting procedure and restricted letter of invitation, in which at least three companies were invited.

Firms Engineering and Construction companies GABE and Global Constructions were also invited but the first one was disqualified as it did not certify previous experience in similar works. The bidding process was awarded through a direct contracting procedure and a restricted letter of invitation, which is in line with the trend previously reported by Business Intelligence.

This is the second contract that ICA secures for the development of Mexico's most important transportation infrastructure. ICA previously secured the contract to adequate land where the complex will rise.

The US consultancy Parsons, an expert in consultancy for airport projects, signed a contract with the Mexican company FOA Builders and with American CH2M HILL to carry out consultancy studies for the airport's design, project control, construction of AICM and the administration of contracts. Parsons has advised more than 450 airports worldwide.

Mexico terminal will have six runways that will be able to operate simultaneously. The airport aims to transport 120 million passengers per year. Construction of the first phase is set to begin this year and it should ready by 2020 with three runways operating simultaneously. Under the first phase, it will serve more than 50 million passengers per year. The project will require as much as $9.5 billion USD.