Alaska Airlines will cease service to Mexico City on 7 November when it ends twice-daily flights from Los Angeles, marking a complete retreat from what has been an increasingly-competitive market.
"We're always closely examining the financial performance of our network and decided to discontinue this underperforming route," the carrier says of its Los Angeles-Mexico City flight. "Alaska will no longer offer service to Mexico City."
Alaska flies the Los Angeles-Mexico City market twice daily using Boeing 737s.
Alaska entered Mexico City in August 2005 with flights from Los Angeles, then expanded with the start of San Francisco-Mexico City flights in August 2017, according to FlightGlobal schedules data.
Alaska axed the San Francisco flight in May, when it cut several other San Francisco routes. At the time, executives characterised the cuts as tweaks to the combined network of Alaska and newly-acquired Virgin America.
Alaska's decision to end its Los Angeles-Mexico City flight – and, hence, all service to the city – follows several years of increasing competition in that market.
Ten years ago, Alaska competed on the Los Angeles-Mexico city flight with just Aeromexico, Mexicana and United Airlines, which carried a combined 38,000 seats each way on the route, FlightGlobal schedules show.
Today, Alaska competes on the route with Aeromexico, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Interjet, United and Volaris.
Those airlines combined offer nearly 64,000 monthly seats each way between Mexico City and Los Angeles, though United will also exit the market in October, data shows.
Alaska says the change enables it to expand elsewhere, citing its planned Seattle-Columbus flight as an example.
"Changes such as this give us the opportunity to redeploy our resources to launch new routes where we think we can be more successful," the airline tells FlightGlobal.
Alaska will continue to serve eight other destinations in Mexico, it says.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
