Quintana Roo moves to put Bacalar's name on the Chetumal airport

Quintana Roo wants anyone who types "Bacalar" into a flight search to find an airport. The state is asking the federal authorities to add the lagoon town's name to Chetumal International Airport, which would change what the airport is called, not what flies into it.

Governor Mara Lezama confirmed on September 13, 2026 that the state government is continuing its efforts to extend the airport's name to include Bacalar. She was careful about the verb. "More than changing the name of the Chetumal airport, it is extending it and adding the word Bacalar," she said, with the aim of attracting more flights to the south of the state to sit alongside those into Cozumel, Cancún and Tulum. "It is a question of competitiveness: when people search on any digital platform and type Bacalar, it comes up that there is an airport."

The logic is a simple one. Chetumal is the state capital and has the runway. Bacalar, a short drive away, has the name that travelers already know, built on the Lagoon of Seven Colors. Bacalar's municipal síndica, Astrid González Buenfil, put the journey between the two at roughly 20 to 30 minutes. From Tulum, Bacalar is about two and a half hours by road.

Where the proposal stands

This is a proposal that the state is pursuing with the federal government. It is not a decision, and there is no decree. The governor described it as a long process "because it is a federal competence," and the Heraldo de México reported on September 14 that the project was still being processed before the federal authorities. Quintana Roo Hoy described it on September 13 as under analysis. None of the reports cites a filed request, a formal ruling or a date by which one is expected.

The decision is federal, not the state's. When the local business federation added its support, it addressed its appeal to the airport's operator, Grupo Aeroportuario Olmeca-Maya-Mexica, to the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT), to the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC) and to the other competent federal authorities, asking them to consider the proposal favorably and see it through.

Even the final form of the name is open. Quintana Roo Hoy's account of the governor's remarks gives it as "Aeropuerto Internacional Chetumal-Bacalar." The business federation's proposed commercial name is "Chetumal, Bacalar." Neither has been adopted by anyone with the power to adopt it.

Who is behind it

On September 16 the president of Coparmex Chetumal, Osmany Josué Hoil Palomo, said the employers' federation backed the governor's proposal and welcomed the fact that she had put the subject back on the public agenda. He was at pains to reassure the capital. Chetumal would keep first place in the name, he said: "Chetumal is the seat, the infrastructure, the services and the gateway; Bacalar brings an internationally recognized tourism brand." According to Hoil Palomo, the initiative has the support of the Othón P. Blanco and Bacalar councils, federal legislators, councillors, business chambers and hotel associations in the south of the state.

He also argued that the name could carry more than one town, helping to promote Calderitas, Mahahual, Xcalak and the Río Hondo riverside communities to travelers who would never otherwise find them.

A member of Bacalar's own council has since spoken directly. On September 22 González Buenfil acknowledged that some residents of Chetumal are uneasy about sharing their airport's name, and said the change would take nothing away from the capital. "We are going to add to the capital. The capital is going to be the capital," she said.

What a name does not do

A name is not a flight, and a new word on the terminal does not by itself bring an airline. The people backing this proposal say so themselves. Hoil Palomo said the change must come with new routes, better schedules, effective promotion, regional mobility and coordination between the authorities and the private sector. "It is not only about a new name on the facade," he said. The governor, for her part, acknowledged that airlines plan their networks well in advance, which is part of why the state is moving now.

It is also worth being precise about the routes announced in the same breath. The Los Cabos to Cancún service starting December 1 and the Acapulco to Cancún service starting November 3, both with Viva Aerobus, serve Cancún. They are not new flights to Chetumal, and they are not flights to Bacalar.

The rest of the southern push

The airport name is one of several moves aimed at the south. On September 4 the state government announced that the agreement establishing a customs section at Chetumal International Airport had been published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación, allowing goods to be imported and exported by air through the terminal. That is a cargo measure rather than a passenger one, and the state presents it as part of a wider logistics plan that ties the airport to the Maya Train's freight service, a strategic bonded facility, the Chetumal free zone and the city's federal development hub.

Bacalar, meanwhile, is trying to be known for more than its water. González Buenfil said the municipality's promotion now takes in its 58 localities, archaeological sites such as Dzibanché and Chacchoben, and birdwatching and nature tourism. She pointed to the Maya Train, which has two stations in the municipality, Bacalar and Chacchoben, and said artisans and producers from communities such as Maya Balam and Kuchumatán now use it to take their work to Tulum, Playa del Carmen and Cancún.

For anyone who owns a home at the lagoon or is weighing one, nothing changes on the ground yet. The part to watch is not the sign on the terminal but whether routes follow it. Our Bacalar page carries the homes currently on the market there, and our report on the lagoon hotel permit refusal covers the town's other big story of the season.

Sources: Governor Mara Lezama's remarks, reported by Noticaribe and republished by Contracorriente, and by Quintana Roo Hoy, September 13, 2026; Heraldo de México Quintana Roo, "Proponen modificar nombre del aeropuerto de Chetumal para incluir a Bacalar," September 14, 2026, and "Empresarios respaldan propuesta para incorporar a Bacalar al nombre del aeropuerto de Chetumal," September 16, 2026; Noticaribe (InZoomMX), remarks by Bacalar síndica Astrid González Buenfil, September 22, 2026; Coordinación General de Comunicación del Gobierno de Quintana Roo, release on the customs section at Chetumal International Airport, September 4, 2026. Main image: Bacalar, Lagoon of Colors, by Roberto Bolaños, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.