Cintra's split up and sale has been postponed until next year, but two smaller Mexican rivals, Allegro and Azteca, are not wasting any time in asserting themselves against Cintra-owned Aeromexico and Mexicana. Mexico's approval for them to expand US routes may also represent a policy shift by its secretary of transport and communications, who seemed more protective a year ago of the country's largest carriers.
Azteca Airlines plans to shift its Mexican flights from US border towns El Paso and Laredo, Texas, to Chicago's Midway. It will cut frequencies on those smaller routes and will not launch a new trans-border route to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It hopes instead for approval from the US Department of Transportation to start Chicago flights in September.
Azteca's original strategy was to serve smaller border towns, and avoid direct competition with Aeromexico or Mexicana. Both airlines threatened to compete with Azteca, but have since backed away because projected traffic in these markets was too low.
Azteca's plans to launch Guadalajara-Chicago are therefore not a retaliation against Cintra, but come in response to the fact that it too has found the border-town markets too small.
Allegro, another Mexican independent, also plans US expansion. It has only two scheduled US routes, plus charters to six other cities. Invigorated by a $10 million equity injection from Pegasus Aviation, and plans for another $12 million before year's end, it now aims to replace charters with scheduled flights on more US routes.
Source: Airline Business
