VivaAerobus to end Mexico-Austin flights

VivaAerobus, the low-cost airline based in Monterrey, Mexico, is ending its service out of Austin, Texas, the United States, to Mexico on May 31, 2009. VivaAerobus is pulling out of Austin, the capital of the state of Texas, just over a year after it launched services to Austin and promised to be the “anchor tenant” of Austin’s new low-cost terminal.

According to a statement from VivaAerobus, the carrier at present serves Austin from Cancun and Puerto Vallarta in Mexico with two weekly flights on each route.

In the statement, VivaAerobus blamed “the unfortunate outbreak of the swine flu” for having made the decision to discontinue all flights to Austin.

The airline announced that it was offering a full refund to all passengers booked on future flights to Austin.

For May 2009, VivaAerobus added, about half of its Austin passengers had asked for cancellations and another 30 per cent of passengers had been “no shows.”

The website flightglobal.com quoted Jim Smith, executive director of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, as saying, “VivaAerobus made this decision owing to the extraordinary external circumstances impacting travel with Mexico.”

He said that VivaAerobus’ actions were in sync with what many Mexican carriers have been forced to do in the wake of swine flu.

It may be noted even though many Mexico-based airlines have either cancelled flights or reduced frequencies, it was the first time a Mexican airline has completely pulling out of a city in the United States.

Many United States-based carriers also have reduced frequencies on Mexican routes and, in some instances, withdrawn from certain routes temporarily.

VivaAerobus had started services to Austin in May 2008, with flights to Cancun and Monterrey. Alongside, the airline had also planned to expand its

operations from Austin with regular flights to destinations in Mexico such as Guadalajara, Puebla, Leon, Queretaro, Veracruz and Puerto Vallarta.

However, of all these planned routes, VivaAerobus could add only Puerto Vallarta, which it did in January 2009.

In another unhappy development, VivaAerobus stopped flying to Austin from Monterrey, where the carrier is based, as well as reduced the frequency of its Austin-Cancun service.

In the statement, VivaAerobus said it had operated 80-90 flights to Austin in the last four months of 2008. In January 2009, the carrier flew only 61
flights to Austin – followed by 40 flights in February 2009 and 66 flights in March 2009.

VivaAerobus operates Boeing 737-300 aircraft in a single-class configuration having 148 seats.

Though VivaAerobus has pulled out of Austin, there are still many other airlines which offer connecting flights to Mexico from Austin.