The US airline Spirit Airlines seeks to take advantage of the strong dynamism in the air market between Mexico and the United States, which despite having been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to a recovery that has even brought the low-cost firm to levels record.
Before the pandemic, the airline operated to Cancun and Los Cabos, focusing on the low-cost vacation segment that it plans to add to Puerto Vallarta as of July 1. With a daily flight from Los Angeles and three weekly from Dallas and Houston, the expectation is to carry up to 90,000 passengers annually by 2022.
“It is a market 100% aligned with our business model, with a very good hotel offer and known worldwide,” explains Camilo Martelo, director of international airports at Spirit Airlines. “We started it big, with weekly and daily flights.”
The airline has maintained a continuous recovery. In the first quarter of 2021, it reached three-quarters of the traffic of 2020, a year higher than the previous one despite suffering the first effects of the pandemic.
Despite having suspended operations in April and May, the company returned to operating towards Mexico as of June, starting with just 1,244 passengers at that time, which by December soared to an air traffic of 62,053 users, the highest for a month at least since 2017, according to the records available from the Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT).
Part of this recovery has been derived from Cancun, says Martelo, coupled with a market that despite having been impacted, remained standing.
“We have always been pleased that Mexico has had a very pro position in tourism. It did not close its airports as such, which gave us the opportunity to restart first in Cancun, in what I call a stage of understanding and knowing more information. And by the summer of 2020 we already had a better idea of what we were facing ”.
For the moment, the airline affirms that it will only focus on these three destinations, in a strategy that starts from a previously designed plan, and in which some conjuncture situations do not influence, says the manager, referring to the recent recategorization of the FAA of the country’s aviation safety that particularly benefits US airlines.
“The reactivation is going to continue. The segment of visitors to friends and family will continue to grow, and as a low-cost segment we have a strong sale due to our offer ”.
