These were followed by the two routes operated by long live aerobus to Monterrey and Guadalajara, while the two flights from Aeromexico a Mérida and Villahermosa had the lowest performance. Highlights the case of Beautiful villawhich had an average of just 20.1 daily passengers.
In this period, it seems that the capacity of the aircraft has been in accordance with the demand of each route.
In the case of Cancun, for example, Volaris operates an Airbus A320, with a capacity of around 180 seats, of which the airline filled 88% on average. Similarly, Aeroméxico has operated its route to Mérida with an Embraer E190 of around 88 seats, which has filled an average of 78%.
In this regard, Fernando Gómez Suárez, an air sector analyst, considers that the performance of routes such as Cancún and Tijuana responds to the fact that, even before the pandemic, there were 10 largest routes in the country, and that to date they have exceeded the traffic of pre-COVID-19 passengers.
“Always with the incorporation of new routes it is trial and error. Normally, previous market studies are always carried out; at AIFA I suppose they would have done them and stipulated those routes because with others it would be more complicated, ”he explains.
This would also explain why Aeroméxico made adjustments 12 days after starting operations at AIFA, going from a daily flight to three weekly frequencies in Villahermosa, and incorporating a new flight to Puerto Vallarta starting in May, which, contrary to Villahermosa, it was among the most in-demand routes before the pandemic.
In fact, five of the current AIFA routes These are the five routes with the highest passenger traffic before the pandemic from the center of the country, while Puerto Vallarta ranked eighth in the top 10 connections in 2019, according to AFAC data.
In the short term, the panorama does not seem to encourage airlines to open new routes. According to data from the OAG platform, between April and the end of July, airlines have scheduled six daily flights on average, compared to the nearly 900 daily flights at the Mexico City International Airport, taking into account the two monthly flights of the Venezuelan airline Conviasa, which did not report traffic data to AFAC.
For Gómez Suárez, it is likely that the airlines will maintain their current presence in the AIFA as long as they are not offered incentives to fly at the airport, coupled with a promotion of the complex. “If we keep waiting passively, doing nothing, it’s not going to happen,” he concluded.