Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

I was looking at the hispanic population growth for the Indianapolis metro area over the past 10 years and it has been rapid. According to censusscope.org the hispanic population increased by over 30,000 from 1990 to 2000. As of 2000 the population was jus over 42,000. The population should pass 60,000 by 2010. At what point would service be justified to a location other than the vacation resort of Cancun? When would service to Mexico City with someone like AeroMexico be due? Or would that ever happen?

Census Data:
http://www.censusscope.org/us/m3480/chart_race.html

Site Admin

Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

Service to Mex City would be dependent largely on business demand. And I would hope AeroMexico wouldn't be the provider, but rather CO or NW. But it's got to be business demand. Even 60,000 people of Hispanic origin (not all of whom would be Mexican, by the way) would be some low-fare demand, but not necesarily the type of demand to support nonstop service.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

What about a provider like Frontier or AirTran?

Site Admin

Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

I don't think it depends so much on the provider as it does on the destination. I doubt any carrier is going to launch much non-hub service (non-major-hub) to a location that would represent mostly low leisure fares. And the only obvious demand between IND and Mex City would be tourism-related (coming to a race, going home to see family, etc). Unless you could survey and show that there is a lot of business demand. I could see Airtran and Frotier launching service from ATL or DEN, where they can connect to a ton more cities. CO flies to a jillion little towns in Mexico ex-IAH, but they use a lot of RJ's and still charge high fares much of the time. Their demand is business-driven, and by using the IAH hub, pax can originate just about anywhere in the U.S. Ditto AA at DAL and to a lesser extent, DL at ATL. Having said that, Frotier and Aitran make their living on leisure travellers, and if anyone can do IND-Mexico City (what's the damn airport code? I'm too lazy to look it up!), they can. But I still think you'd see flights to Cozumel, Puerto Vallarta, Ixtapa/Zihuatenejo, and other leisure destinations in Mexico before you saw Mex City.

Now if someone had the cojones to establish a hub IN Mexico City (and if the Mexican government would let them), that would make things really interesting.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Honestly the Mexican market is one I am completely clueless about. I don't understand the love for Cancun. I've never been to Mexico so I can't really say. Cozumel seems to be a very popular destination if it could just do a little better with dodging hurricanes.