Viva Aerobus announced the opening of an operations base at Merida International Airport (MID), Yucatan, the sixth after those it has in Monterrey (MTY), Guadalajara (GDL), Cancun (CUN), Mexico City (MEX) and Tijuana (TIJ).
The Mexican low cost carrier will open three new routes: Toluca (TLC) with a daily flight from September 26, Querétaro (QRO) from December 16 with two flights a week and to León/Guanajuato (BJX) from December 18, also with two flights a week.
Viva Aerobus also operates from Merida to six other domestic destinations and one international destination:
- Mexico City (MEX) with four daily flights.
- Monterrey (MTY) with two daily flights.
- Guadalajara (GDL) with five weekly flights.
- Veracruz (VER) with five weekly flights.
- Tuxtla Gutierrez (TGZ) with three weekly flights.
- Villahermosa (VSA) with two weekly flights.
- Havana (HAV), Cuba, with two weekly flights.
Initially the low-cost carrier will base two Airbus A320ceo/neo aircraft to cover the aforementioned destinations, and from December 2022 a third aircraft will operate overnight. They estimate that this will generate 300 direct jobs and another 300 indirect jobs.
«With this new 10-route service, we will offer more than two million seats per year and close to 400 flights per month to and from the ‘Ciudad Blanca’,» said Juan Carlos Zuazua, CEO of Viva Aerobus.
Viva Aerobus emphasizes that with this base it becomes Merida’s main airline, and that between January and July 2022 it transported more than 600,000 passengers.
According to the Cirium platform, Merida will represent 1.3% of frequencies when compared to other Viva Aerobus bases. Currently, the main hubs are Monterrey (35.6%) and Mexico City (33.7%), followed by Guadalajara (11.5%) and Tijuana (9.7%), and finally Cancun (8.1%).
Merida International Airport
Merida was the eighth busiest airport in Mexico in 2021, moving 2,790,649 passengers. It recently inaugurated a new terminal that involved reconfiguring the current infrastructure to handle 5 million passengers annually.
During the first half of 2022 (January-June) it moved 1,605,000 passengers, an increase of 0.8% over the same period of 2019 when 1,591,848 travelers transited, according to Aeropuertos del Sureste (ASUR).
It currently has 13 domestic and 5 international destinations with 7 airlines:
- Chetumal (CTM) and Cozumel (CZM) with Aeromar.
- Mexico City (MEX) with Aeromexico, Viva Aerobus and Volaris.
- Mexico City/Santa Lucia (NLU) with Aeromexico and Volaris.
- Guadalajara (GDL) with Viva Aerobus and Volaris.
- Querétaro (QRO) from December 16 with Viva Aerobus.
- Leon/Guanajuato (BJX) from December 18 with Viva Aerobus and from November 18 with Volaris.
- Toluca (TLC) with Viva Aerobus beginning September 26.
- Monterrey (MTY) with Viva Aerobus and Volaris.
- Oaxaca (OAX) and Tijuana (TIJ) with Volaris.
- Tuxtla Gutierrez (TGZ), Villahermosa (VSA) and Veracruz (VER) with Viva Aerobus.
- Houston (IAH), United States, with United Airlines.
- Miami (MIA), United States, with American Airlines.
- Guatemala City (GUA) and Flores (FRS), Guatemala, with TAG Airlines.
- Havana (HAV), Cuba, with Viva Aerobus.
In addition, flights to Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) and Toronto (YYZ) with American Airlines and WestJet, respectively, will resume in November.
