Here’s some great news for Mexican airlines, as well as consumers…
In this post:
FAA upgrades Mexico from Category 2 to Category 1
In May 2021, the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgraded Mexico’s aviation safety rating from Category 1 to Category 2. This came after FAA inspectors conducted a review of Mexico’s Agencia Federal de Aviacion Civil (AFAC), and identifying several areas of non-compliance with minimum safety standards.
To be clear, this didn’t mean that the FAA deemed Mexican airlines to be unsafe, but rather just meant that the country wasn’t properly overseeing air carriers in accordance with minimal international safety standards.
This had significant implications (which I’ll get into below), but there’s now a positive update. The FAA has announced that Mexico has once again been upgraded to a Category 1 rating. This follows over two years of close work between the aviation authorities in both countries.
For those wondering why the FAA even has any authority in this regard, it’s because the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has published standards that airlines have to meet, and this is evaluated under the International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) program.
Using these international standards, the FAA assesses the civil aviation authorities of all countries with air carriers that have applied to fly to the United States, or that participate in codeshare agreements with airlines from the United States.
What are the implications of this?
With Mexico once again having a Category 1 rating from the FAA, air carriers from Mexico:
- Can initiate new service to the United States in a normal manner
- Can take part in reciprocal codeshare agreements with carriers from the United States
Meanwhile for over two years now, while Mexico had a Category 2 rating from the FAA, air carriers from Mexico:
- Couldn’t initiate new service to the United States
- Were restricted to previous levels of any existing service to the United States while corrective action took place
- Couldn’t codeshare with air carriers from the United States
So for the past couple of years, airlines from Mexico haven’t been able to add new routes or flights to the United States, and couldn’t even codeshare with air carriers from the United States. That will now be changing. This means Aeromexico and Delta can resume codesharing, and we can also expect Mexican airlines to launch new routes to the United States.
Bottom line
Over two years after being downgraded, Mexico has regained its Category 1 status with the FAA. This means that airlines from Mexico can once again add new routes to the United States, and codesharing can resume between airlines from the United States and airlines from Mexico.
This is a significant development, and I’m sure it’s something that many airlines appreciate (though US airlines that don’t have significant partnerships in Mexico probably aren’t happy about this, as they’ll potentially face more competition).
What do you make of Mexico regaining Category 1 status with the FAA?
Hopefully it will provide more competition but I'm not sure the Mexican airlines have enough planes and pilots for a bunch of new routes to the US.
I've traveled a lot in Mexico in the past two years and there's a ton of domestic demand and high loads on the flights. I'm not sure they will want to cut domestic service to compete with US carriers, especially with a strong peso. We'll see.
Does this mean that you will no longer have to go through security screening again if you are connecting flights in a different country?
I think this is really exciting because no one understands how to run a low cost operation like Viva Aerobus.
IASA is a political program masquerading as safety and the FAA's administration of it is hypocritical. If they audited themselves, they would probably fail compliance with ICAO standards. Have a look at some of the IASA Category 1 countries and you'll see what I mean.
Replace IASA with NATO, FAA with USA.
How ironic.
I would love for MSY to get a route. Southwest flies weekly to CUN, but that's our only nonstop to Mexico.
Fares to and from Mexico have been artificially high since Covid times. This is excellent news for consumers.
Before the downgrade to Category 2, and before Covid, I could regularly find nonstop roundtrip fares from SFO-MEX for under $200. These days you’re lucky to find anything under $700.
Looking forward to cheap fares coming back.
"Inflation" has entered the chat
I think you're exaggerating just a little. You have to look to find anything over $700 and I can find non stops under $400.
I recall flights being around $300 before the pandemic but I didn't travel to Mexico much pre pandemic so maybe I missed the sub $200 deals. SFO SJD is only marginally more expensive than before the pandemic but there's healthy competition on that route. Hopefully prices on SFO MEX will drop but I don't think we'll see anything under $200.
Delta noted on its Morgan Stanley investor conference call this morning that its growth will be shifting from higher growth to Europe to higher growth in Latin America and Asia, both driven by their partnerships.
While the AM partnership is older than the Latam partnership, DL still has considerable opportunity to grow its relationship with Aeromexico and the two will make up for lost ground.
and as much as some fail to see it,...
Delta noted on its Morgan Stanley investor conference call this morning that its growth will be shifting from higher growth to Europe to higher growth in Latin America and Asia, both driven by their partnerships.
While the AM partnership is older than the Latam partnership, DL still has considerable opportunity to grow its relationship with Aeromexico and the two will make up for lost ground.
and as much as some fail to see it, Delta's international network growth and its better ability to compete with AA and UA's international networks and in their hubs is a part of what is driving their elite status qualifying changes. They will simply gain access to a larger pool of high value flyers that will now consider DL because of its network and partnerships.
Delta’s never catching United in their international network. I think that ship has sailed. They don’t have a leader like Patrick Quayle. They don’t have as many hubs in cities that are conducive to O&D international traffic as UA or AA, especially when you consider foreign traffic. For example, ORD >>> MSP and/or DTW. At the same time, it’s nice that Delta uniquely benefits from its Aeromexico partnership since Aeromexico is the only Mexican airline...
Delta’s never catching United in their international network. I think that ship has sailed. They don’t have a leader like Patrick Quayle. They don’t have as many hubs in cities that are conducive to O&D international traffic as UA or AA, especially when you consider foreign traffic. For example, ORD >>> MSP and/or DTW. At the same time, it’s nice that Delta uniquely benefits from its Aeromexico partnership since Aeromexico is the only Mexican airline to be in one of the big 3 alliances. Problem is that connecting in MEX is cumbersome from what I’ve heard, since for international to international you still have to clear customs like in the US, so that kind of limits Delta’s potential there. And I’m saying this as someone who also likes Delta more than United.
first, Delta is the largest airline in both NYC and LAX, leaving just Chicago where United is the largest among the top 3 cities.
Delta used to be much weaker on the coasts but that is changing.
Second, DTW PLUS MSP delivers more revenue not just than the local market in Chicago for UA but also the entire Midwest. Delta's dual hub strategy works. UA divides Chicago with AA and WN and while UA is...
first, Delta is the largest airline in both NYC and LAX, leaving just Chicago where United is the largest among the top 3 cities.
Delta used to be much weaker on the coasts but that is changing.
Second, DTW PLUS MSP delivers more revenue not just than the local market in Chicago for UA but also the entire Midwest. Delta's dual hub strategy works. UA divides Chicago with AA and WN and while UA is the largest, they do not have as large of a share or pricing control as high as DL in DTW and MSP.
Third, DL will bypass UA in Latin America revenue, likely this winter. The Latam partnership simply opens up much more revenue to DL and its growth than UA can do.
finally, in Asia, Haneda and China are both capped on the number of flights. Narita is simply not viable as a long term local market which means it cannot support the amount of connecting traffic that UA could push through it IF the local market was strong.
AA, DL and UA are the exact same size to China right now and DL will stay right in step w/ UA's size - China was a huge part of UA's size advantage.
ICN is simply a far larger and far better connecting hub and THAT is where DL will grow enough to displace UA's size in NE Asia.
Add in a few more new route additions south of Japan and S. Korea and excluding China and Delta could very well have a route system that is not only on par in size with UA but generates much more revenue at far lower costs; DL will be flying A350s deep into Asia while UA has the 787-9 or the 777W which burns far more fuel. Same thing in the S. Pacific. and the A350-1000 order from DL could tip the scales even more.
As much as you think otherwise, DL could very well put a huge dent in UA's claim of having the largest global network; all of the routes that UA would have to add will bring in less and less new revenue but add much more costs.
And the first of these markets is Mexico. UA will fall to DL/AM before AA does.
Lol completely wrong.
John,
what is wrong?
if you are arguing against very known data, it is you that simply does not want to accept reality.
All I see is lots of assertions.
i hope viva brings spirit's aus-mty flight back