The balance of this 2020 for passenger traffic in Mexican airports despite the restart of operations in that country is not good. The numbers of all the country’s airports from January to September show a decrease in some cases of more than 50% compared to the same period last year.
We will review the current situation of the airports in Mexico.
The Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte (OMA), the concessionaire of 13 airports in the country (Acapulco, Ciudad Juárez, Culiacán, Chihuahua, Durango, Mazatlán, Monterrey, Reynosa, San Luis Potosí, Tampico, Torreón, Zacatecas and Zihuatanejo), registered a drop in passenger traffic of 54.9% from January to September, compared to the same period in 2019.
OMA specified that in the first 9 months of 2020 it served 7,757,781 passengers while in the same period of 2019 the number was 17,216,558.
Although all the airports registered falls, those who presented the worst numbers were the airports of Tampico with a decrease of 65.4% with 191,775 passengers, Monterrey with 58%, going from 8,317,837 to 3,497,432 users and Reynosa with 57,7%, moving 152,900 passengers.
OMA reported a 50.7% decrease in September compared to the same period in 2019, domestic passenger traffic fell 48.9%, while international passenger traffic decreased 65.9 percent.
Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (Asur), concessionaire of 9 airports in Mexico (Cancun, Mérida, Cozumel, Villahermosa, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Huatulco, Tapachula and Minatitlán) had a 55.2% drop in passenger traffic from January to September 2020, compared to the same period in 2019.
Asur reported that in the first 9 months of 2019 it provided service to 25,783,861 users while in the same period of 2020 the number was 11,548,726 passengers.
Domestic passenger traffic was down 50.4%, providing services to 6,133,129 users compared to the 12,367,374 that were transported from January to September 2019, while international traffic had a drop 59.6%, going from 13,416,487 to 5,415,597 passengers.
The most affected were Cozumel with 68.6% fewer passengers, since it only provided services to 46,371, down from 147,802 last year, Huatulco with 62.9% less since it registered 213,884 travelers compared to 575,881 in 2019 and Cancun dropped 47.8% from 6,703,534 to 3,500,852 users.
For September of this year, Asur reported a 48.7% decrease in passenger traffic compared to the same month of 2019, international traffic was the most affected, which fell 65.8% from 930,871 to 318,659 users, and the domestic market had a drop of 36.3%, mobilized 820,718 users in September of this year when in September 2019 it offered services to 1,288,816 passengers.
The Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico (GAP), concessionaire of 13 airports in Mexico (Guadalajara, Tijuana, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Montego Bay, Guanajuato, Hermosillo, Mexicali, Morelia, La Paz, Aguascalientes, Los Mochis, Manzanillo) registered a decrease in passenger traffic of 38.3% for the first 9 months of 2020, compared to the same period of the previous year. Domestic passengers showed a decrease of 33.7%, while international fell 47.1%.
In September, total passenger traffic decreased 38.3%, while Mexican airports showed a 35.8% decrease.
The number of places offered during September 2020 decreased 20.7% compared to September 2019. Occupancy went from 82.4% in September 2019 to 60.5% in September 2020.
Mexican airports continue to work to provide their passengers with all the security measures and encourage them to travel. As the days go by, the flow of passengers is recovering little by little but undoubtedly 2020 will be a year to be forgotten.
