The Cancun International Airport has been experiencing a downward trend in air traffic for six months, according to the monthly report by Aeropuertos del Sureste Asur.
According to the statistics, in the first nine months of the year, the volume of passengers handled through Cancun’s terminal has decreased by 6.1%, which means 1.5 million fewer passengers compared to the same period in 2023.
While in September of last year the airport had already handled 24.6 million passengers, this year the figure is 23.1 million.
If only national traffic is considered, the terminal has handled nearly 1.2 million fewer passengers during the reference period, a decrease of 13.6% compared to 2023.
In international traffic, the decrease is smaller, at just 1.9%, reaching a volume of 15.4 million foreign passengers, compared to 15.7 million from January to September 2023.
This decline in the terminal is almost entirely explained by the drop in national traffic, a phenomenon experienced throughout the country due to the reduction in frequencies by airlines that must keep part of their fleets grounded for a safety review of their aircraft engines.
In the case of Cancun, the downward trend began in April with a marginal drop of 0.1%; in May, it increased to 1.3% compared to 2023; in June, it reached 2.4%; in July, it rose to 4.3%; in August, the decline was 5.5%, and in September, it continued to increase to 6.1%.
Some projections anticipate that the terminal will hardly surpass 30 million passengers by the end of 2024.
The director of Cancun’s airport terminal, Carlos Trueba Coll, said in a previous interview that they do not currently attribute the downward trend to the start of operations at Tulum’s airport, as no flights to Cancun have been canceled and simultaneously transferred to Tulum.
“We consider it a complement; there are no indications that the new airport is monopolizing flights that traditionally land in Cancun; so far, they are entirely new routes to that terminal,” he said.
Despite this, in just half a year, the Tulum International Airport has already ranked among the top 10 in air traffic nationwide, operating routes that have long been the most profitable for Cancun, such as the one from Dallas, which has also been the highest volume international route to Mexico in recent years.
Source: El Economista
