The Mexican carrier Aeromexico will relocate its 67 flights currently served from Mexico City International Airport’s (MEX) Terminal 1 to Terminal 2. The airport authorities rescinded Aeromexico’s contract (which was valid until 2025) in an attempt to keep reducing the saturation levels at the country’s largest hub.

Relocating back to T2

In 2021, Aeromexico made the surprising decision to move some of its operations from MEX’s Terminal 2 to Terminal 1. Since 2008, the country’s legacy airline had operated exclusively in T2, along with some of its partners like Delta Air Lines and a few other carriers (Copa Airlines, the now-defunct Aeromar, and more).

But, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company decided to relocate operations of some domestic routes to Terminal 1. Aeromexico operated 67 flights from T1 to destinations such as Campeche, Ciudad Obregón, Ciudad Victoria, Colima, and Culiacán, representing 13% of its total operations at MEX.

Photo: Guillermo Quiroz Martínez via @gquimar.

This week, the MEX airport authorities decided to rescind Aeromexico’s contract to operate from T1, valid until 2025. The authorities gave the carrier less than a month to relocate its flights back to T2. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, MEX’s general director, vice admiral Carlos Velázquez Tiscareño, said Aeromexico will not lose its slots to operate these flights. He added that the airport has the authority to rescind a contract to address the saturation levels without having to pay a fine or compensation to the airline.

Aeromexico has not released a public statement on the airport authority's decision to relocate its operations to Terminal 2, a company’s spokesperson said Simple Flying.

MEX’s traffic levels in 2023

Mexico City International Airport became saturated a few years ago. COVID-19 briefly gave the airport a break, but now it is recovering its pre-pandemic traffic figures.

To ease the saturation levels at MEX, the previous government opted to build a new airport which would force MEX’s closure. It was going to be a super-hub (you can read more about it here), but the current government opted to cancel its construction and continue using MEX along Toluca International (TLC) and the new Felipe Ángeles International (NLU) in a three-airport system.

Photo: Guillermo Quiroz Martínez via @gquimar.

To ease MEX’s saturation levels, the current government decided to reduce the number of hourly operations from 60 to 52, not give new slots, and move all-cargo operations to NLU (which may have angered US authorities). But these measures do not seem to be working. The airport’s general director told El País MEX expects 52 million passengers in 2023. He added,

In the first half of the year, MEX registered 23.50 million passengers, an 11.1% growth versus the same period in 2022. It was the country’s largest airport holding a 25.8% market share of all passengers.

What do you think about MEX’s decision to forcefully relocate Aeromexico back to T2? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: El País.