Other airports with many more years of operation as international terminals, such as Cozumel and Chetumal, are not included in this list because their foreign flight traffic is relatively insignificant.
In the first six months of the year, the “Felipe Carrillo Puerto” International Airport in Tulum, QRoo, handled a total of 212,800 international passengers and 138,866 domestic passengers.
The terminal has already ranked among the top 10 in the country for international passenger traffic, with a 0.7% share at the national level, according to operational statistics compiled by the Federal Civil Aviation Agency.
This achievement is remarkable considering that the terminal only began receiving international flights on March 28 of this year, meaning it has achieved this in just three months of effective operation.
Other airports with many more years of operation as international terminals, such as Cozumel and Chetumal, are not included in this list because their foreign flight traffic is relatively insignificant.
Governor Mara Lezama has stated that this new terminal could close the year with over 1 million passengers and position itself among the top five airports with the highest number of international passengers by 2025.
Of the 12 international routes already served by this terminal, the one with the highest traffic is the flight from Dallas, with 24,142 arriving passengers.
This flight ranks first nationally in terms of international passenger traffic to Mexico, specifically on the Dallas-Cancun route, with over 1 million passengers annually.
Next in importance is the route from Houston, with over 14,000 passengers in just four months of operation. This route also ranks among the top 10 for international passenger traffic in the entire country, specifically on the Houston-Cancun route.
Cancun: The Competition
In other words, although Asur executives, such as Carlos Trueba, director of Cancun’s airport, have claimed that the Tulum airport has not taken away passenger traffic from them, the reality is that the new terminal serves virtually the same destinations as Cancun. In just three months of effective operation, it has become a significant competitor in international traffic.
The 12 foreign routes currently operating to Tulum include flights from Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal, Newark, New York, Panama, and Toronto.
We can expect an announcement soon regarding a new Avianca flight from Bogota, and starting in December, a flight from Frankfurt will also begin operations.
In summary, these are not entirely new markets flying to Tulum; rather, they are flights that have been operating to Cancun for years. However, they represent the three main source markets for Mexico: The United States, Canada, and soon, Colombia.
Source: El Economista
