Continental and Delta Airlines are leading a swarm of US carriers capitalising on the recently liberalised US-Mexico bilateral, writes David Knibb. 
Since the two nations agreed in December to allow one more carrier from each nation on all designated cross-border routes, the US Department of Transportation (DoT) has been processing and approving a blizzard of applications. At latest count, it has made at least
30 new awards for US combination carriers and nine for all-cargo airlines.
The biggest beneficiary is Delta, which is adding 13 new Mexican destinations including one granted to its Comair unit, plus more frequencies on some of its most popular routes. USA 3000 is second with six new routes. Continental, which already has the most
extensive Mexican network of any US airline, is adding four new routes, Atlantic Southeast, Spirit and United two each, and one each by American and US Airways. The recent new route by Alaska Airlines to Mexico City came independent of the revised bilateral.
DoT has also started a formal Mexico route case because of competing applications on four other routes. Four US carriers have applied for New York Newark-Cancun; four others want Chicago-Cancun. Delta and United are competing for Los Angeles-Puerta
Vallarta, and Delta, ExpressJet, Frontier and United are vying for Los Angeles-San Jose del Cabo. The bilateral allows only one more US carrier on each route, so DoT will have to choose the winners.
Mexicana and Aeromexico continue to build their northern networks, but so far other Mexican carriers have shown little corresponding interest. Even though a third Mexican airline could fly almost anywhere in the USA, Azteca is the only one so far to apply and it has only added three routes. Aviacsa is interested in more US flights, mainly from Monterrey, but plans to renovate its fleet first.
All of Mexico's airlines are girding themselves for a likely shakeout at home with no less than seven low-cost carriers planning to compete by year's end. The latest proposed entrant is a new startup backed by the founder of Ryanair.
DATA SOURCE: Innovata schedule data.
Source: Airline Business
