Miami International Airport Is Abandoned: Giménez Responds To Mayor Who Blames Previous Administrations

MIAMI, Florida. — Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and her predecessor, Congressman Carlos Giménez, found themselves caught in a blame game over the troubling condition of Miami International Airport.

After Levine Cava said she “saw the problems” at MIA after becoming the first Miami-Dade woman to serve as mayor in 2020, Giménez said she felt it was a personal attack.

“She said it was a decade of negligence by previous governments, and it turned out that I was the previous government,” Giménez said.

Levine Cava said $7 billion in capital improvements and $1.7 billion in maintenance upgrades are outstanding to address maintenance issues at MIA.

“Unfortunately, there hasn’t been this level of investment in this airport for too many years,” Levine Cava said.

Gimenez said previous administrations have invested billions of dollars in MIA and projects included the South Terminal, North Terminal and runway expansion.

“All of this was done before me and during my time, but after me I am not so sure,” Giménez said, adding that his government has not neglected the MIA. “Everything was perfect, no! But to say that we somehow neglected it is ridiculous.”

Levine Cava said work on terminals and parking lots is a priority for his administration and that the Skytrain, which has been out of service since September, is scheduled to come back online in April.

“It took us two years to change the contract and get one that could operate 24 hours a day on weekends, so we could move forward aggressively,” Levine Cava said, later adding: “We are compliant with industry standards in terms of the number of elevators deployed.” the service performance, which accounts for about 8% of the total performance.”