Miguel Torruco Marqués, head of the Tourism Department (SECTUR in Spanish) of the Federal Government, announced that flight and passenger traffic at Mexico's airports will do great in 2022. The airline seats planned for 2022 are expected to increase by 22.5% compared to the number of passengers traveling in 2019.
This will generate an economic revenue of 35,185 million dollars; in addition, from January to December 2022, 190,513 flights are scheduled to arrive in Mexico, which represents an increase of 2.1% over 2019, when 186,500 flights arrived at the country.
In terms of occupied seats, 31,558 million passengers are expected to arrive, which, compared to the 24,462 million passengers traveling in 2019, means an increase of 22.5%. "By 2022, based on these results, it is estimated that there will be a revenue of 35,185 million dollars," Miguel Torruco Marqués said.
Torruco said that the top tourist destinations receiving the highest number of flights and passengers will be:
Cancun: 56,951 flights and 10,505,000 passengers, generating an estimated revenue of US$11,712 million dollars. In 2019, the number of flights was 48,361 carrying a total of 7,684,000 passengers.
Mexico City: 55,737 flights and 9,660,000 passengers, generating a revenue of US$10,771 million. In 2019, 64,401 flights arrived at the city transporting 8,930,000 passengers.
Guadalajara: 15,764 expected flights and 2,707,000 passengers, with an estimated economic revenue of US$3,180 million dollars. In 2019 there were 16,128 flights arriving at the country with a total of 2,68 million passengers.
San José del Cabo: 16,301 flights and 2.6 million passengers expected, generating a revenue of US$2,942 million. In 2019, 12,921 flights were registered transporting 1,789,000 passengers.
Puerto Vallarta: 13,174 flights, with 2.14 million passengers expected and an estimated economic revenue of US$2,388 million dollars. In 2019, 11,533 flights arrived at the country transporting 1,545,000 passengers.
“Mexico is the second largest market in Latin America after Brazil. It is gigantic and it is a market with enormous growth capacity,” said Eliseo Llamazares, a member of the Global Aviation and Tourism Group and head of Aviation and Tourism for Latin America at KPMG. “It is next to the United States and close to Canada and South America, which means that it has a great opportunity and at the same time a great challenge,” he added.
However, he also said that in recent years the Mexican authorities made a series of mistakes that are currently hindering the growth of aviation industry in the country and that must be resolved so that Mexico becomes the leader in Latin American aviation.
For Llamazares, Mexico wasted the opportunity to become the main Asian hub in Latin America, a complex situation closely related to the cancellation of the New Airport in Texcoco, since Santa Lucia will not have the necessary capacity to decongest air operations in the capital.
But the most important obstacle, so far, is the downgrading of Mexico to Category 2 by the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), after it found deficiencies in critical safety elements that the Federal Aviation Agency Civil (AFAC) must comply, in accordance with the minimum standards established by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
Currently, low-cost Mexican airlines have had a good recovery from the covid crisis, and this pace could represent an opportunity for them to expand their operations. However, the degradation keeps its growth in routes, frequencies and use of aircraft to the United States frozen.
According to the Mexican government, their plan is to achieve the status of Category 1 during the first quarter of the year.