American Schedules New York-Mexico City Launch

Credit: Joe Pries

American Airlines is set to enter the New York-Mexico City market later this year with a route that will become its sixth to the Mexican capital.

The oneworld alliance member intends to begin flights from New York John F Kennedy (JFK) to Mexico City Juarez (MEX) on Nov. 3, operating flights using Boeing 737-8 aircraft. Service will be daily on the 3,364-km (2,090-mi.) route.

American already flies to Mexico City from five US points—Charlotte (CLT), Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), Los Angeles (LAX), Miami (MIA) and Phoenix Sky Harbor (PHX)—and its decision to serve the city from New York will see it compete with four other carriers.

At the present time, Aeromexico provides three daily flights between JFK and MEX and its partner Delta Air Lines serves the route daily. LCC Viva Aerobus also offers a daily JFK-MEX service, while United Airlines flies Newark (EWR)-MEX three times per day.

In total, there are currently 18,994 two-way weekly seats between New York and Mexico City, data provided by OAG Schedules Analyser shows, with Aeromexico offering 44.1% of the capacity. United has a 27.9% share, with Delta on 14.3% and Viva Aerobus on 13.7%.

However, overall capacity remains 35% down on this time in 2019 following JetBlue’s withdrawal from the market in late 2019 and the grounding of Mexico’s Interjet. American’s entry will increase weekly capacity by about 2,400 two-way weekly seats.

American already flies to Cancun (CUN) in Mexico from JFK and has scheduled the resumption of service to Los Cabos (SJD) in November. In addition, as reported earlier this month, a daily JFK-Monterrey (MTY) route will begin on Nov. 3 using Airbus A319s.

However, the planned expansion in the Mexican market looks set to come at the expense of American’s flights from JFK to Colombia, launched as part of the carrier’s Northeast Alliance (NEA) with JetBlue. The airline has already confirmed that operations to Cali (CLO) and Medellin (MDE) will end in November, and its daily service from JFK to Bogota (BOG) is now also scheduled to cease on Nov. 3.

David Casey

David Casey is Editor in Chief of Routes, the global route development community's trusted source for news and information.