Mexicana de Aviación is back in the air. One of the oldest airlines in the world, founded in 1921, completed the first flight of its new phase on December 26, as Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador intended.
The carrier, which had gone bankrupt in 2010, had its remaining assets acquired by the Mexican government, which funded its return to the skies as an airline focused on cheap air tickets.
Although he launched the project in August with ambitious goals, Obrador had to wait until almost the end of the year for Mexicana to complete its first flight.
The reason is that there was no time for the new airline to receive aircraft and organize its flight network. Instead, the Mexican Air Force provided two Boeing 737-800s and one 737-300 to form the carrier’s initial fleet.
The first of the 737-800s, registration XA-ASM, was used to obtain the Air Operator Certificate (AOC) in record time and took on the inaugural flight between Mexico City and Tulum on Tuesday.
The debut, however, was hampered by bad weather and the aircraft ended up having to divert to Merida before completing the flight. Also on December 26, the Mexicana Boeing 737 flew to Tijuana, a city on the border with the United States.
For now, the air network of the new Mexicana de Aviación is limited to eight destinations, always starting from the capital, in addition to flights operated under a partnership agreement with Link Conexión Aérea (TAR).
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For Obrador, Mexicana’s goal is to reduce air ticket prices and increase the country’s connectivity. The task, given to a state-owned company, however, does not usually work out when there is an open market, with private airlines such as Aeromexico, Volaris and Viva.
