Aeromexico is launching what I’d consider to be an interesting new route to my home airport…
In this post:
Aeromexico will fly between Miami & Cancun
As reported by @IshrionA, Aeromexico will be launching a new daily flight between Miami (MIA) and Cancun (CUN). Specifically, the new flight will operate as of December 19, 2024, with the following schedule:
AM427 Miami to Cancun departing 7:55AM arriving 9:55AM
AM426 Cancun to Miami departing 11:10AM arriving 1:05PM
The 531-mile flight is blocked at 2hr westbound and 1hr55min eastbound. It will be operated by a Boeing 737 MAX 8, featuring 166 seats, comprised of 16 business class seats and 150 economy class seats.
Notice how the plane for this service is coming “from” Miami rather than from Cancun. Clearly Aeromexico is using a jet that arrives in Miami late at night, then it does a Cancun turn in the morning, and then it returns from Miami to Mexico City in the afternoon.
The Miami to Cancun market is currently served up to five times daily by American. On top of that, JetBlue flies up to three times daily from Fort Lauderdale to Cancun.
I’m happy to see some competition in the market. As someone going for Air France-KLM Flying Blue status, I also welcome the opportunity to earn XPs when traveling to the Cancun area.
Why Aeromexico’s leisure expansion is interesting
On the surface, Mexico’s largest airline launching a flight between Miami and Cancun is hardly surprising, since this is potentially a big leisure market. However, what makes this noteworthy is that historically Aeromexico’s service to the United States has been almost exclusively to & from Mexico City Airport (MEX). For years, the airline didn’t even dabble in operating other leisure routes to the United States.
We recently saw Aeromexico launch flights from Manzanillo (ZLO) to both Atlanta (ATL) and Los Angeles (LAX), so this is the second set of leisure additions by the airline to the United States. In some ways, I’m surprised it took the airline so long to add this kind of flying.
That’s especially true when you consider the close partnership that Aeromexico and Delta have (though it’s being scaled back), which has meant that these kinds of routes could serve Delta’s customer base as well, given all the frequent flyer reciprocity.
I suppose the explanation is that Aeromexico just didn’t have many spare planes to grow, and it needed to preserve its slots in Mexico City, as the airline is the biggest operator there. I’d love to see Aeromexico continue to add service in more leisure markets between Mexico and the United States.
The airline has a much better cost structure than many US airlines. Then again, in many leisure markets, there would be competition from Mexican ultra low cost carriers, like Volaris and Viva Aerobus.
Bottom line
As of December 2024, Aeromexico will launch a new daily flight between Miami and Cancun using a Boeing 737. This is the first international route that the SkyTeam carrier will operate from Cancun, and the airline will be going head-to-head against American.
This kind of leisure flying is still a fairly new concept for Aeromexico, so I’m curious how many more routes like this we see…
What do you make of Aeromexico’s new Miami to Cancun route?
I was hoping to see 787 making this hop.
Sadly, they don't even use the 787 on New York flights anymore. Or at least every New York flight. Aeromexico's product is horribly inconsistent. They fly a regional jet from Detroit to Monterey, which is just awful.
Assuming Delta and Aeromexico can continue their relationship, this could make for some interesting business-class trips, specially for anyone who wants Delta MQDs. Mexico City, Cancun, and Tijuana regularly have very cheap business-class airfares to Europe. Sometimes it's 100% on Aeromexico metal. Other times, it's a combination with some on partners, like Air France. I hate Mexico City's airport but I love flying Air France from Mexico City to Paris because the flight is so...
Assuming Delta and Aeromexico can continue their relationship, this could make for some interesting business-class trips, specially for anyone who wants Delta MQDs. Mexico City, Cancun, and Tijuana regularly have very cheap business-class airfares to Europe. Sometimes it's 100% on Aeromexico metal. Other times, it's a combination with some on partners, like Air France. I hate Mexico City's airport but I love flying Air France from Mexico City to Paris because the flight is so long that you can exceptional value for money. I've also done Miami to Paris a few times. I've scooped that up for $2,200. Sometimes I'll see XXX-Orlando-Mexico City--XXX routing. It would be fun to do XXX-XXX-MIA--XXX. And don't forget, you can also fly Orlando to Miami on Detroit.
Ben,
Very good post, thanks.
I live in Merida-MID, Yucatan
I have very good knowledge of the aviation market in this region.
You see, for most Yucatecans we considered Miami our second home,
We traveled there several times a year and many people from here we house and condos in Miami.
Merida has always been link to MIA,
In the 80’s we flew with Eastern, Continental, Mexicana, Aeromexico...
Ben,
Very good post, thanks.
I live in Merida-MID, Yucatan
I have very good knowledge of the aviation market in this region.
You see, for most Yucatecans we considered Miami our second home,
We traveled there several times a year and many people from here we house and condos in Miami.
Merida has always been link to MIA,
In the 80’s we flew with Eastern, Continental, Mexicana, Aeromexico and even PAN AM.
In fact AM used to have 3 flights.
Today we only have AA and Vivaaerobus,
but have UA to IAH, AM to ATL and
AA to DFW and MIA.
The fares to MIA from MID are horrible, very expensive, so very often we fly from CUN which are 50% better.
You are invited to come to visit Merida any time, I ll be more than happy to show you around and to have a good time
Merida is amazing!
This is why Delta is superior to AA in MIA. This one flight will disrupt the market.
I remember taking an AM flight from TPA to MID on an MD-80 in the mid 1980's ....
According to Aeroroutes, AA is upgauging one of their morning MIA-CUN flights to a 777 on the same day that AM starts their MIA-CUN flight.
“ Why Aeromexico’s leisure expansion is interesting” I don’t think there’s anything even remotely interesting about AM flying from MIA-CUN once daily.
Sorry Ben, this feels like filler just to post something.
@ Wyatt -- I totally understand if it doesn't interest you. Though let me say that in all sincerity I *do* find this to be interesting, and this isn't intended to be a filler post. Admittedly it's in part because I live in Miami, so of course my "local" airport is perhaps more interesting to me than to the average person. But also, Cancun is a huge vacation destination from the US, and I think...
@ Wyatt -- I totally understand if it doesn't interest you. Though let me say that in all sincerity I *do* find this to be interesting, and this isn't intended to be a filler post. Admittedly it's in part because I live in Miami, so of course my "local" airport is perhaps more interesting to me than to the average person. But also, Cancun is a huge vacation destination from the US, and I think it's significant if Mexico's largest airline launches its first route to the US from there.
In all fairness, they should have a hub of flights to US cities from CUN, at least during winter. They easily could fly to 15 US cities from CUN and even make it a connecting hub to bypass MEX and connect other Caribbean, Central American, yucatecan cities
I think its very interesting and useful.
By the way I am from this area,
I live in Merida-MID, and often go to CUN to fly to USA and Europe
It's not interesting to @Wyatt and he of course speaks for the entire world, because, you know Wy-Not?
“ This kind of leisure flying is still a fairly new concept for Aeromexico, so I’m curious how many more routes like this we see…”
I know that AM used to fly JFK-CUN in the late 80s-90s on the DC-10. Not sure when it stopped but it resumed again around 2012 on the 737 then stopped. They also had JFK-ACA flights on the DC-10 in the 80s. I’m sure there were other leisure destinations on AM but these are two that I remember out of JFK.
I got to fly JFK-CUN-JFK on AeroMéxico in June 2016 (AM 417 and AM 416), back when AM used to depart from JFK's (horrible) Terminal 1. Their 737-800s gave me Delta vibes. The products were very similar, except AM actually fed you. I'd fly them to CUN again.
"Aeromexico is using a jet that arrives in Miami late at night"
It arrives at 1:05pm, which isn't late at night, that's early afternoon. Or do you mean the jet arrives in Miami from Mexico City late at night?
@ Julia -- I mean it arrives in Miami from Mexico City late at night, then it sits there overnight, before flying to Cancun the next morning.
It’s obvious he means the latter…