The Panamanian airline, Copa Airlines, said this Sunday that it will not operate at the new Santa Lucia airport.
Undoubtedly, one of the top projects of this six-year term is the Felipe Ángeles International Airport, which, since it was announced, has been the target of all kinds of criticism and accusations.
In 2019, Copa Airlines was one of the most important airlines with participation in Mexico, with 1.2 million passengers; However, in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak throughout the world, the company stopped all its flights between April and August of last year.
Following the onset of the pandemic, airlines suffered a significant negative impact due to the cancellation of flights around the world. This, of course, is no secret.
Now, faced with an important scenario of reactivation in flights, Copa Airlines has been rising little by little, even exceeding its own numbers compared to 2019, serving 103,107 users last August, this according to data from the Federal Agency for Civil Aviation (AFAC).
According to information published in Expansión, Pedro Heilbron, CEO of Copa Airlines, has mentioned that: “We have restarted our flights to Guadalajara and Monterrey, and they are going quite well. In general, we are very optimistic about the Mexican market, we are returning very quickly to the capacity that we had in the pre-ndemic ”.
To maintain this flow that it has already been drawing for years, the airline has ruled out the possibility of operating at the new Santa Lucía airport, preferring to maintain its operation with the Mexico City International Airport (AICM).
“It is important for us to have our flights in the same place. We have the connectivity with the rest of the country from the airport where we operate today ”.
According to Heilbron himself, Mexico is one of the Latin American countries that has experienced the greatest growth in the sector due to the decision not to close borders and, in that sense, now that Copa Airlines is resuming its activities, its relationship with the Mexican market it is still standing, but from the AICM and not at the Felipe Ángeles International Airport.
Previously, it was announced that the airline Air Canada mentioned that, at the moment, it is not planning to make flights to and from the new Santa Lucia airport, once it begins operations.
Added to this, and with Copa Airlines’ decision to continue working with the Mexico City International Airport, it seems that the Felipe Ángeles, in the midst of all the criticism it has received for various factors, will have a great challenge ahead.
For Copa Airlines, as mentioned by the company’s own CEO, Mexico is one of the key countries, which is why it has in mind to expand its fleet with seven new aircraft by the end of this 2021 and eight more by 2022, which They may be used for flights to our country.
Undoubtedly, both what was declared by Air Canada and, now, what Copa Airlines has mentioned, represents an important precedent and a strong blow when the great project of the current regime has not yet begun to operate.
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