National air fleet decreasing due to lack of regional aviation

MEXICO - The fleets of the country's three largest commercial airlines total around 390 aircraft. Despite this, there is a passenger deficit, due to the fact that regional aviation coverage has been neglected and to the lack of airport infrastructure, according to industry experts.

Fabricio Cojuc, an independent aviation consultant, explained that the size of the Mexican fleet is underestimated by 15% to 20%; Brazil alone, he said, has an estimated 450 commercial aircraft.

In Canada, he explained, the air fleet is around 650 aircraft and in Colombia the sum reaches 173 commercial aircraft.

In an interview with A21, the consultant explained that, although the size of Mexico's commercial air fleet is reasonable, there is a lack of aircraft that offer regional routes, such as ATRs.

He commented that both Brazil and Colombia operate 80 aircraft of this type and Mexico has none. Aeromar used to operate them, but ceased to do so after the strike and its work stoppage.

The consultant indicated that the closest thing to this type of aviation is the airline TAR, which operates Embraer 145s, and two others that do so in the Baja California Peninsula.

"It is not possible that, being the main aviation market in Latin America, the second largest economy in the region and a country with a large territorial area, that regional aviation that Aeromar covered with its ATRs does not exist today," he said.

Cojuc expressed that the important thing is to see how to recover and promote that regional aviation, which allows serving isolated, small markets, where the established airlines cannot offer services because their aircrafts are very large and because the airfields do not have room for those aircrafts.