Aeromexico is introducing what I think is an interesting new route to my home airport…
Aeromexico flies between Miami and Cancun
As @IshrionA reports, Aeromexico will launch a new daily flight between Miami (MIA) and Cancun (CUN). Specifically, the new flight will operate from December 19, 2024 with the following schedule:
AM427 Miami to Cancun, departure 7:55 am, arrival 9:55 am
AM426 Cancun to Miami, departure 11:10 am, arrival 1:05 pm
The 531-mile flight takes 2 hours westbound and 1 hour 55 minutes eastbound and is operated by a Boeing 737 MAX 8 with 166 seats, including 16 in business class and 150 in economy class.
Note that the aircraft for this service comes “from” Miami, not Cancun. Aeromexico clearly uses a jet that arrives in Miami late at night, then makes a stopover in Cancun in the morning, and returns from Miami to Mexico City in the afternoon.
American Airlines currently flies from Miami to Cancun up to five times a day. Additionally, JetBlue flies from Fort Lauderdale to Cancun up to three times a day.
I’m glad there’s some competition in the market. As someone aiming for Air France-KLM’s Flying Blue status, I’m also excited about the opportunity to earn XP when I travel to the Cancun area.
Why Aeromexico’s expansion into the leisure sector is interesting
On the surface, it’s hardly surprising that Mexico’s largest airline would launch a flight between Miami and Cancun, given that this is a potentially large leisure market. But it’s notable because Aeromexico’s flights to the US have so far been almost exclusively to and from Mexico City (MEX) airport. For years, the airline didn’t even try to offer other leisure connections to the US.
Recently, Aeromexico launched flights from Manzanillo (ZLO) to Atlanta (ATL) and Los Angeles (LAX), so this is the airline’s second set of leisure flights to the United States. In some ways, I’m surprised it took the airline so long to add this type of flight.
This is especially true given the close partnership between Aeromexico and Delta (although currently being scaled back), which has meant that these types of routes could also benefit Delta’s customer base due to frequent flyer reciprocity.
I suspect the explanation is that Aeromexico simply did not have many spare aircraft to grow and it needed to keep its slots in Mexico City since the airline is the largest operator there. I would be happy to see Aeromexico continue to offer service in more leisure markets between Mexico and the United States.
The airline’s cost structure is much better than that of many US airlines. However, in many holiday markets there is competition from Mexican ultra-low-cost airlines such as Volaris and Viva Aerobus.
Conclusion
Starting in December 2024, Aeromexico will launch a new daily flight between Miami and Cancun using a Boeing 737. This will be the first international route the SkyTeam airline will serve from Cancun and will put the airline directly in competition with American.
This type of leisure flying is still a relatively new concept for Aeromexico, so I am curious to see how many more routes of this type there will be…
What do you think of Aeromexico’s new route from Miami to Cancun?
