2022 Set To Be A Record Year For Mexico-Europe Service

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The growth is mainly because of many new routes between Europe and Cancún, while Aeroméxico launched two additional routes to Madrid. Aeroméxico is comfortably the largest airline between Europe and Mexico. It’ll resume Mexico City to London Heathrow on April 1st, while in early March Madrid will increase to double-daily and Amsterdam and Paris will again be once-daily.

A record year for Mexico-Europe

While 2022 is far from finalized, some 5.6 million seats are available for sale, according to Cirium data. That’s a 3.4% increase on 2019. As always, this says nothing of fares or loads. However, Mexico has been broadly open during the crisis, so this growth is not a surprise.

The development comes primarily from multiple European airlines beginning Cancún, a crucial long-haul leisure market. These include TUIfly Netherlands (from Amsterdam), Iberia (Barcelona), Eurowings Discover (Frankfurt), TAP Air Portugal (Lisbon), World2Fly (Madrid), Aeroflot (Moscow Sheremetyevo), and Austrian (Vienna). Later in 2022, Eurowings Discover will begin Munich-Cancún on March 30th, followed by Iberojet from Barcelona on June 26th.

Cancún capacity has increased by 230,000+ seats since 2019, while non-Cancún/Mexico City is up by 161,000+. That’s largely driven by Aeroméxico’s new Madrid services. Source of data: Cirium.

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Europe-Cancun is up by 10%

The growth mentioned above has increased Europe-Cancún capacity by 10% this year versus 2019. Cancún now has 45% of the market, its highest after 2013 (49%). It isn’t higher in 2022 because of the meaningful growth of non-Cancún/Mexico City capacity, pushing that share to 4.3%, its best yet.

Emirates is in the top-10 list thanks to its Dubai-Barcelona-Mexico City service. It has fifth freedom traffic rights between Barcelona and Mexico City. Source of data: Cirium.

Aeroméxico returns to London Heathrow

Mexico’s flag carrier will return to the UK in April, 24 months after last serving the long, 5,541-mile (8,917km) route. The latest data from experts Cirium shows that 96% of flights this year will be by 243-seat B787-8s. However, a handful of services will be by larger, 274-seat B787-9s, albeit only from November onwards.

It’ll initially have five weekly services, rising to once-daily from June onwards. Due to Heathrow and Mexico City’s slot problems, flight times often vary. On the first day of resumption, April 1st out and April 3rd back (yes, 3rd, as confirmed by the carrier’s website), the schedule is as follows, with all times local:

Mexico City to Heathrow: AM7, 22:30-16:00+1 the next day
Heathrow to Mexico City: AM8, 22:30-04:30+1 the next day

Aeroméxico,_Boeing_787-8_Dreamliner_(water_cannon_salute),_N961AM_-_LHR

That makes six routes to Europe

Aeroméxico has six non-stop routes across the Atlantic this year, more than any other year. It’s thanks to Monterrey and Guadalajara being connected non-stop to Madrid in December 2021.

Booking data shows that, in 2019, both markets had over 30,000 round-trip passengers, mainly, of course, transiting in Mexico City. Their introduction followed the loss of Mexico City to Barcelona in 2020. The route restarted in 2019, so its end was driven by the pandemic, the newness of the service, and because of Emirates launching Mexico City from the Spanish airport in December 2019.

The return of Monterrey-Madrid came after a long absence, with it last served between September 2005 and January 2009, perhaps ending as a consequence of the financial crisis around then. It is Aeroméxico’s fifth-largest route to Europe this year:

Mexico City to Madrid: 393,362 round-trip seats this year
Mexico City to Paris CDG: 192,348
Mexico City to Amsterdam: 189,186
Mexico City to London Heathrow: 120,843
Monterrey to Madrid: 84,858
Guadalajara to Madrid: 84,646

What do you make of Aeroméxico and the border market development? Let us know in the comments.