Mexicana, the airline, is making a comeback under military administration.

This has to be one of the weirdest attempts I’ve ever seen to bring back an airline brand. And that’s saying a lot since bringing back an airline brand rarely works. But this is still going to happen, and tickets are now on sale…

Mexico’s Gov. is Starting A New Airline

The Mexican government is starting an airline, and a military general will run it. Early in August 2023, the Mexican government spent $48 million USD to buy the name of Mexicana de Aviacion, which used to be Mexico’s main national carrier. After going private in 2005, the airline went out of business in 2010.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the president of Mexico, is bringing this airline back to life with the goal of giving passengers low-cost options and giving more jobs to Mexicans. When Mexicana went out of business, about 7,500 of its former workers had claims against the company for lost wages. Most of the money from this buying price is going to pay those claims. There are also three buildings and a flying simulator that come with the buy of Mexicana.

So, what can we look forward to with the “new” Mexicana?

• Mexicana will be housed at Felipe Angeles International Airport (NLU), which is Mexico City’s second largest airport.
• It hasn’t caught on with airlines as much as the government had hoped, so Mexicana will move there. The airport is also run by the military, which is an interesting fact.
• The company wants to start flying by the beginning of December 2023, and seats are now on sale.
  The airline will start flying with 10 rented Boeing 737-800s, which are being delivered right now.
• All 180 of the seats on the Boeing 737s will be in the economy class.
• The airline promises “quality service at a reasonable price,” and its tickets are 18–20% less than those of its competitors.
• The airline will only fly within Mexico. At first, it plans to fly to up to 20 cities, including Cancun, Guadalajara, Oaxaca, Mérida, Los Cabos, Tijuana, Mazatlán, León, Hermosillo, Ciudad Juárez, Puerto Vallarta, and Monterrey.
• The government will give the airline $235 million to help it get started.
• The usual Mexicana sign will be on the tail of the plane, but the plane will be white and green with red engines.

This has to be one of the fastest times for a new airline to get off the ground, from the time it was announced to the time it started flying.

Does It Make Sense to Start a New Airline?

For a long time, the Mexican government had been talking about starting this plane, but I thought they wouldn’t actually do it. But it looks like it’s really happening, and I don’t understand why.

I can see why a country with few flights might want to start an airline, even if it’s not likely to make much money. After all, it’s important to be able to fly. But in this case, the government is just starting a local airline that will compete with private companies that are already in Mexico. There are a lot of private companies in Mexico.

It’s not often that a country with a lot of good plane service starts its own airline. What’s the real reason behind this? Is this just about getting things right for former Mexicana workers? Is this about getting service to the new airport in Mexico City, which hasn’t done as well as planned so far?

The only thing that makes sense is that they are trying to get more people to use Mexico City’s second airport. Not only will that happen because Mexicana is based there, but I think the government also thinks that other companies will start to fight there more and more.

Do they really think that a military general is the best person to run the company so that it can make as much money as possible? I don’t want to be too harsh, but the attention to detail I’ve seen so far isn’t all that great. For example, the airline will only fly 737-800s, but the model plane shown at the news meeting was a 737-300, and the graphic shows a plane with four engines.

People often ask me how I can write about planes 365 days a year for more than 15 years without getting bored. So, here’s why. In the flight business, there’s never a dull time. I mean, how can you not be interested in the fact that Mexico’s government is starting an airline that will be run by a military general?

Conclusion

After being bought by the government, Mexicana will be back in the air by the end of 2023. Mexico has chosen to bring back its old national airline. At first, it will only fly to places inside Mexico from Felipe Angeles Airport. Now that tickets are on sale, this is really going to happen… wow.