Mexican low-cost carrier Volaris is continuing its US expansion with new links from Mexico City and Guadalajara to San Diego. The non-stop services will commence on July 15 and will be operated on a daily schedule.
The Independent airline has witnessed rapid growth over the past year and has been attempting to fill part of the void in the domestic and international markets following the closure of Mexicana last year. San Diego will be its 32nd destination, across a network that encompasses 52 routes, served with more than 140 daily flights.
An estimated 186,000 O&D passengers travelled between San Diego and Mexico in the past year; more than a third of these passengers used the only current direct service into the country, a ten times weekly connection to San Jose Del Cabo by Alaska Airlines.
Even without a direct flight to stimulate passenger demand, more than 25,000 passengers are believed to have flown between San Diego and Mexico City using the one-stop services of US Airways via Phoenix, Continental Airlines via Houston, American Airlines via Dallas Ft Worth International and United Airlines via Los Angeles.
The market to Guadalajara is naturally smaller, with around 7,000 O&D passengers flying to or from San Diego in the last 12 months. Volaris already holds a 17 per cent share of the traffic between the two cities via its existing links to Guadalajara from Los Angeles and San Jose.
Volaris will be mainly targeting leisure travellers keen to explore the cultural, tourist and economic markets between regions in both Mexico and the United States. There is also a sizeable Mexican community who live in San Diego and surrounding areas who will now be able to travel more freely to visit family members who live on the other side of the border.
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