Flyers on Mexico’s new airline have some planes all to themselves

Two weeks into its operations, Mexico state airline Mexicana de Aviacion’s slow ramp-up has allowed some passengers the experience of private travel. 

A report from YouTube user Jorge de Leon showed him ecstatic to fly in a completely empty plane from Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, to Mexico City’s Felipe Angeles airport, on a flight in the airline’s first week of operation. Three people had flown that route the previous day according to the crew, he noted. 

Load factor data for airlines’ first months of operations are typically not public, according to Bloomberg Intelligence aviation analyst Francois Duflot. Still, the low number of passengers may be due to initial issues including difficulties to purchase tickets online, he added.

“I’m not really surprised by the low load factors: there were a lot of uncertainties in the months coming up to the official start of operations,” Duflot said. “There is already a decent air travel offer, so I would think people are not necessarily in a hurry to try a new airline with no track record.”

The state airline, inaugurated on Dec. 26 and run by the military, has had 220 flights so far since operations began and is looking to finish the month with 448 flights, Mexicana deputy head Leobardo Avila Bojorquez said at a press conference Tuesday. 

“User response has been satisfactory, as reflected by the 14,162 reservations that have been made in the website through June,” said Avila. “We’ll continue working to become the preferred option.”

Mexicana de Aviacion stopped flights in 2010 amid a bankruptcy filing. The government bought rights to the name last year and marketed it as a budget airline that currently flies to 15 destinations across the country.

The company has one Boeing 737-800 jet formally assigned to it in an industry database operated by Cirium, which typically seats 158, Duflot added. The government has said it’s in talks to purchase more aircraft from Boeing Co. 

Until then, some flights are currently operated by other airlines. YouTuber de Leon’s said his flight was operated by local airline TAR Airlines. That flight’s Embraer model usually seats 50, Duflot said. In the presentation, Avila said 7,829 passengers have flown so far with the airline.