Wasting little time to fill demand, Viva Aerobús is taking over Interjet’s Mérida-Havana route, tourism officials in Yucatán announced.
The new direct flight to the Caribbean republic follows Interjet’s financial collapse, leaving its future in doubt. The latter low-cost airline maintained a daily international route in November 2019.
Walfred Castro Novelo, corporate communications director of Viva Aerobús; state tourism secretary Michelle Fridman Hirsch; and Mérida airport manager Óscar Carrillo Maldonado witnessed the inaugural flight on Saturday.
Flights will be Wednesdays and Saturdays on an Airbus A320 aircraft that fits 186 passengers, said Castro Novelo, director of corporate communications of Viva Aerobús. The airline also flies to Cuba from Mexico City and Cancun, and is Mérida’s only direct path to Havana.
Flights take about 90 minutes across the Yucatán Channel, the strait connecting the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.
“It is something outstanding what Viva Aerobús did, which is to take advantage of this route, a crucial one,” said Fridman Hirsch.
Aeroenlaces Nacionales, S.A. de C.V., which is the airline’s official name, is owned by Mexico’s largest bus company group, IAMSA, and was co-founded by Ireland-based Irelandia. It is based in Monterrey.
