Grand Auto Export Operation from Acapulco

(Acapulco, NA 14 June) Sunday night the Costera Alemán was clogged between Parque Papagayo and the Marine Terminal, as more than 70 large, double auto carriers lined up to offload nearly 1,000 new cars, coming from the Nissan plant in Morelia. According to the Port Authority, the vehicles were destined for export to Central and South America. A large cargo ship was waiting in the port to take them aboard, and the operation continued all night and into Monday. The line of trucks was stopped on both sides of the Costera for about 18 hours, while the vehicles were slowly rolled onto the dock at the rate of about 70 per hour.

According to Octavio González, director of the Port Authority, the facilities can handle up to 35 auto carriers at once, and twice that number showed up in Acapulco between 9:00 pm and midnight Sunday. The long line of auto trucks, and the several police escorts assigned to them to prevent thefts by organized crime, clogged the main throughway well into the afternoon on Monday, snarling traffic and slowing communication throughout the Traditional Zone of the port city. The port director said that the ship has been taking on autos for nearly two week, and that a total of 390 auto carriers was expected, bringing the ship to its capacity of 3,800 vehicles. Apparently the arrival on Sunday night of double the usual number of trailers came about because the ship was scheduled to leave on Monday.

The drivers of the auto carriers complained that the traffic police charged them $100 pesos to be able to park on the Costera, which they all paid at the risk of having their license plates confiscated, and then the next shift charged them all another $100 each. One of them was quoted as saying, “We know about this already. It’s not just today. It’s every time we come to Acapulco the transit police ask for money, and we always have to give it to them to show support for the local police.”