While in 2020 national airlines were the engine of recovery and in 2021 international companies contributed to growth, in the short term the focus is on newly created companiesa trend that picked up after the reconfiguration of the air market due to the pandemic.
“There is a new airline called norse [Atlantic Airways]. arajetwhich is new too, and UltraAir; all those airlines that are being born, that I see interesting potential, we are trying to attract them”, says the manager to Expansion.
“In the case of Arajet, it has already announced its new flight from the Dominican Republic, and of Ultra Air, recently William Shaw [director general] He has just said that he is very interested in starting his flight to Cancun, even though the routes are very competitive. We are also talking with the people from Norse to see where they can operate, from a Osloa London. And of course more capacity is coming to long-time customers, we’re looking at ways to attract it,” he says.
The manager acknowledges that the demotion of Mexico to category 2 conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration in May 2021 contributed to increased capacity allocation by US airlines; however, this increase is aimed at stabilizing in the face of new challenges in the aviation sector.
“An issue that can affect growth, that does not have a good pace, is that in the United States the airlines do not have crews, they would like to grow but no crews. That limits them a bit”, explains Vales Lehne. “We will have good growth at the end of the year and for 2023, but not at the percentage levels of this year.”
Beyond the new airlines, the potential to attract other players from more distant markets is slim. The manager refers that the planes to cover long distances are reduced, and the operating costs rise in the face of increases such as the price of fuel. Hence, no connections have been made from the Middle East beyond the route of Turkish Airways between the city of Mexico and Istanbulwhich has a stopover in Cancun.
“We have worked with the people of the airlines in the Middle East, with the case of Etihad Airways and of emirates for years, but it’s complicated, we haven’t managed to have that yet. Turkish actually ate their errand. In the case of Emirates, most of its equipment is A380, it is an aircraft that would not serve them for this type of market due to its cost, the very range of the aircraft, etc., it would make them make a stopover as they do in Barcelona, then it makes the operation more expensive and complicates them.”