By Juan Pedro Sanchez Zamudio
Aeroméxico Resumes International Routes, Starts Flying 737 MAX
Mexican flag carrier Aeromexico is starting the second half of the year and the beginning of the summer by returning to operating international routes and launching new aircraft. Little by little, the airline is returning to operate at pre-pandemic levels.
Aeromexico restarted its operations on July 1 from Mexico City to the Augusto C. Sandino International Airport in Managua, Nicaragua, where it was received with the traditional water jet. The route will have three flights a week, operating on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
According to a press release, the Mexican flag carrier had been connecting Nicaragua with Mexico for more than six years. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the connection between the two Latin American countries was interrupted, only to restart on the first of this month.
Aeromexico reaffirmed its commitment to continue connecting Mexico with Central America, where it currently has five destinations from Mexico City and offers more than 42,500 seats per month. Specifically to Nicaragua, the airline will offer more than 2,700 seats per month on flights operated with its Embraer E190 aircraft.
Aeroméxico restarted operations from Mexico City to Austin and Dallas with an offering of seven weekly flights to each destination, which can be booked with the Mexican airline or its partner, Delta Air Lines.
“We are pleased to return to both destinations, which allow us to provide more and better options to our customers. In addition, with this increase in our connectivity, during July we will be offering around 600 flights and more than 80,000 seats to the four main cities in the state of Texas: Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio,” José Zapata, Aeroméxico’s Vice President of Sales, said in a press release.
Currently, both airlines offer more than 40 routes between Mexico and the U.S. from their main operations centers, and in July they will operate more than 4,500 flights, a 91% recovery compared to the same period two years ago.
Aeroméxico carried out its first commercial flights last week with two of its new Boeing 737 MAX 9s. The first was Aeroméxico flight AM908 operating on the route between Mexico City and Monterrey. The aircraft, bearing the registration XA-IMH, first touched down in Mexico in the early morning of May 29 and is the first of 28 new aircraft that the airline will be operating between the second half of this year and the first half of 2022.
According to a press release, the Boeing 737 MAX 9 is an aircraft that will offer Aeroméxico’s customers more space onboard than comparable aircraft in addition to WiFi and seats designed specifically for the company’s 737 MAXs.
Thanks to its lighter and more aerodynamic structure, the Boeing 737 MAX 9 is an aircraft that operates with efficiencies that are important to airlines, including fuel consumption and CO2 emissions per passenger of up to 16% lower and emits less noise compared to other aircraft of similar category.