Nearly one year after initially launching daily roundtrip flights between Vancouver and Mexico City, Aeromexico plans to add another three roundtrip flights per week.
The new flights start on December 1, which also happens to be the day that the Canadian government has said that Mexican visitors to Canada will no longer need to obtain visas.
Not only will there be more flights but the route will be served with bigger planes.
Although the total number of flights on the route is going up to 20 from 14, the airline estimates that it will increase the weekly seat-count to rise by 85%.
Aeromexico launched daily YVR flights on December 9, 2015, using a 124-seat Boeing 737-700. It then upgraded to a 160-seat Boeing 737-800. The most recent changes bring Aeromexico’s total weekly seat offering to 3,200.
“Canada’s recent announcement to drop visa requirements for Mexicans, and Aeromexico’s interest in responding to the needs of our customers encouraged us to add the new flights to further consolidate the airline’s presence in this North American country,” said Aeromexico’s corporate sales director, Jorge Goytortua.
“We know that Mexicans enjoy traveling to Vancouver, and Canadians are also enticed by the warm weather of Mexico’s beach destinations and its charming colonial cities, which is why we decided to offer our Canadian passengers greater connectivity options to our extensive route network spanning 45 cities across Mexico.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed last November that he would lift visa restrictions on Mexicans entering Canada that former Prime Minister Stephen Harper imposed in 2009.
Those restrictions hurt tourism from Mexico, Stephen Pearce, Tourism Vancouver’s vice-president of marketing, told Business in Vancouver last year.
“We were in double-digit growth and Mexico was a rising star,” he said. “Then Canada introduced the visa and our market fell by 50%. That drop happened within two years, and we bottomed out at about 43,000 visitors to Vancouver from Mexico in 2010. The good news is that since then, we’ve doubled our numbers.”
Tourism from Mexico to Canada by way of B.C. entry points was up 38.6% to 54,300 in the first half of 2016.
Air Canada (TSX:AC) flies to multiple points in Mexico, including Mexico City, and has code-share agreements with United Airlines (Nasdaq:UAL) for many more routes. WestJet (TSX:WJA) also flies to both Mexico City and various sun destinations.
