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American Airlines is starting to slow down its rapid growth across the United States, and flights to Cancun are the latest to be suspended as the airline reviews its routes and service.
Cancun Flight Suspension
According to Aeroroutes, American Airlines has announced that it will suspend its once-daily Boeing 737 MAX 8 airline service from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport to Cancun International Airport in the run-up to the peak fall holiday period.
American Airlines flights will be suspended starting on September 4 and are currently planned to resume on November 4.
There will be no flights by American Airlines between New York JFK airport and Cancun in the months of September and October.
The airline also announced the suspension of a flight between Los Angeles International Airport and Mexico City during the same time period. That flight was with a 737-800 aircraft.
American Airlines confirmed the flight suspensions with the following statement to the media.
“As part of our evaluation of our capacity growth plans for 2024, American has seasonally adjusted service on LAX-MEX and JFK-CUN in September and October. We’re making this adjustment now to ensure we’re able to re-accommodate customers on affected flights, and we apologize for any inconvenience our customers experience during their travel journeys.”
Slowing Cancun
While American Airlines is attributing the flight suspensions to seasonal adjustments, the fact is the amazing passenger growth in Cancun is finally starting to flatten and even slow a bit.
The latest passenger counts from the operator of the Cancun International Airport, Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S.A.B. de C.V., showed a negative year-over-year passenger rate in both domestic and international travelers during the month of May.
During the month of May, domestic airline travelers to Cancun from Mexico nearly fell 15 percent year-over-year to about 878,000 passengers instead of over a million in 2023.
Meanwhile, international travelers at Cancun International Airport numbered 1.561 million in May 2024 as opposed to 1.597 in May 2023, a slight decline of 2.3 percent.
Year to date, more than 9.77 million international travelers have used Cancun International Airport, still amounting to an increase of 4.8 percent year-over-year.
Airline Industry Challenges
New York John F. Kennedy airport still will have plenty of flight route options to Cancun even after the suspension of flights from American Airlines.
The route is covered by Delta Airlines and Jet Blue. Several other Mexican airlines also fly to other airports in the country.
The airline industry in the United States has been facing a number of challenges right now including a slower domestic economy; backlog and safety issues at Boeing; along with a Pratt & Whitney engine recall.
It would not be a surprise to see additional route cuts from the airline industry, especially to Cancun International Airport after the number of flight announcements that were made at the end of last year and start of this one.
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