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Mérida, Yucatán — The Manuel Crescencio Rejón International Airport is pursuing new destinations including Los Angeles and Orlando.
Routes to Panama, with Copa Airlines; and Bogotá, with Avianca, are also in the works, as are domestic flights to Tijuana, León Guanajuato and Oaxaca, an airport manager announced Friday.
Increased connectivity to Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Cancun, Villahermosa, Veracruz and Havana are among ASUR’s four-year goals, said Alejandro Vales Lenhe of Aeropuertos del Sur (ASUR), which manages the facility.
Mérida’s international airport is forecast to add up to 19 new routes in the next four years. Eleven airlines operate in Mérida: eight national and three international.
Very few airports in the world are growing at this rate, said Vales Lenhe. In 2017, the airport served 2.1 million passengers.
ASUR and state officials, at a press conference held at the air terminal, presented an air connection strategy to continue the airport’s steady growth.
Tourism Secretary Saul Ancona Salazar, whose post possibly ends in October, praised the synergy that has developed between the government and the private company that runs the airport.
“Between 2012 and 2018, a 73.8 percent growth was registered in the weekly average of available seats, on arrival flights, going from an average of 15,905 available in 2012 to 27,637 in the current year,” Ancona Salazar said. Another 200 weekly flights are projected by December.
Ancona Salazar said that 92 percent of passengers arriving in Mérida arrive via domestic flights, 6.7 percent via the United States, 1 percent through Cuba and 0.2 percent through Canada.
To continue adding new air routes at Crescencio Rejón, Vales Lenhe said, the existing private-public synergy must be preserved.
Sources: La Jornada Maya, Reporteros Hoy
