Mexican airlines lost $460 million due to downgrading of category
The downgrading of the category of the air authority in Mexico since 2021 has caused economic damage to Mexican airlines for 9,200 million pesos (about 460 million dollars), by limiting their ability to offer flights to the United States, revealed a study presented this Monday.
According to the “Panorama of Tourism Activity in Mexico 36”, prepared by the National Tourism Business Council (CNET) and the Anáhuac Tourism Competitiveness and Research Center (Cicotur), the downgrading to category 2 of the Mexican aviation authority since May of last year has also prevented the boarding of 2.3 million passengers on Mexican airlines, “a situation that prevents the competitive growth of the industry.”
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On May 25, 2021, the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) concluded that there were a series of at least 28 safety deficiencies within Mexican airlines, for which it downgraded its category, amid a reduction in national and international flights due to the confinements forced by the covid-19 pandemic, EFE reported.
According to data from CNET and Cicotur, national lines had a market share of 24.6% in international operations between January and April 2022, while in 2021 their share was 22.3%, and in 2020 , of 29.3%.
This participation is far from the 31.8% of 2019, prior to the sanitary restrictions due to the pandemic and the highest level registered by Mexican airlines in the last six years for the same period referred to.
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“A considerable decrease in this proportion is observed in relation to the dynamics observed until 2019 due to the effect of the current crisis, as well as due to the degradation of the national aeronautical authority,” the study reads.
The document also warns that US airlines had a 71.5% share of passenger traffic in “scheduled international service” among all international offers.
The study maintains that, “although it is lower than the participation observed during the same period of 2021 (86.4%), it is still higher than the records seen until 2019”.
“This behavior is mainly due to the degradation of the Mexican aeronautical authority -which remains unresolved-, which has meant that only US airlines benefit from the expansion of the air market to Mexico from the United States,” underlines the CNET Y document. Cicotur.
Likewise, the panorama of tourist activity shows that flights to Canada, another of Mexico’s main partners under the T-MEC, remained in the fourth place of importance (8.1%), below a greater participation of European airlines (10.2%) and Central and South America (10%), and only above a minimal Asian participation (0.5%).
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