Airfare in Mexico flies to pre-pandemic level

With the growing domestic activity, the boost of the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) and the reactivation of the Toluca International Airport (AIT), the airline industry has emerged to exceed the figure of 101.4 million passengers served this year in 2019, despite the limitations to increase activity to the United States due to the degradation to the Mexican air authority.

The Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC) reported that, between January and October, airlines (national and international) operating in Mexico added 86 million 962,311 passengers in regular operations, which represented an increase of 4.1%, compared to the same period of the pre-pandemic year.

This increase is the third consecutive month-to-month comparison (and the largest), after a start to the year with five months of negative figures, one of growth (in the January-June period, 2019 levels were exceeded for the first time) and another of short.

In addition, the results mentioned up to October are presented prior to the winter vacation period, the busiest for the airline industry.

AFAC data indicates that, in operations within the country, led with Volaris’ ultra-low-cost model, 46 million 487,873 passengers were transported, which represented an increase of 5.3%, compared to the first ten months of 2019. In the foreign flights of national airlines there is still a lag of 21.8% (with its 10 million 585,063 passengers), due to air degradation, which prevents greater activity.

In contrast, foreign airlines reached 29 million 889,375 passengers, which represented an increase of 15.8 percent.

Airports and airlines

Since its opening, on March 21, the AIFA has had a gradual growth in operations (up to October it had 15 routes), like the AIT, which after more than a year of not having passenger activity today serves eight routes ( in both cases the most successful destination is Cancun).

Both have already added 723,939 passengers to the country’s airport system, an amount that will help exceed the 101.4 million passengers served in 2019.

Of all the airlines, Volaris is the one with the largest share, 26.5%, followed by Grupo Aeroméxico, which has 19.9%, VivaAerobus, with 17.9%, American Airlines, with 8.9%, United Airlines, with the 5.1%, from Delta Airlines, which has 3.6%, and from Copa Airlines (which started activity in AIFA last October, while the firm from the Dominican Republic did so a month earlier), with 1.2 percent.

In his October report, the executive president of Volaris, Enrique Beltranena, said: Demand continues to be resilient and load factors reached another monthly record. We are convinced of our revenue management strategy (moderate base rates in certain price-sensitive domestic markets to obtain strong load factors and increase base rates in the international market, including Central America, to offset the higher cost of fuel.

This airline sets the course, for the moment.

alejandro.delarosa@eleconomista.mx