Aeromexico Begins Boeing 787 Flights To Rome 28 Years After Leaving The City

Aeromexico has launched Mexico City to Rome flights. It is ‘technically’ a relaunch, as the carrier served Italy’s capital from 1992 to 1995 on a long-winded Mexico City-Cancun-Madrid-Rome basis. This time, it is, of course, non-stop, and it comes as the market is unserved following the end of Alitalia. Aeromexico now serves five European airports and has seven Europe routes.

Aeromexico to Rome

On March 25th, the last day of the northern winter season, Aeromexico took off from Mexico City bound for Rome. It marked the start of a four-weekly operation, which rises to daily in mid-June. The 6,362-mile (10,239 km) route uses three-class, 243-seat Boeing 787-8s. In April, it is scheduled as follows, with all times local:

• Mexico City to Rome: AM70, 19:15-15:30+1 (12h 15m block time)
• Rome to Mexico City: AM71, 23:15-04:25+1 (13h 10m)

Photo: via Aeroporti di Roma.

The defunct Alitalia, which ITA Airways replaced, inaugurated Rome-Mexico City in June 2016 and remained until March 2020. It deployed the 777-200ER on the year-round service. In 2019, the frequency varied from a low of three flights a week to a high of daily.

Rome’s appeal to Aeromexico

The attraction of Rome to Aeromexico isn’t hard to understand. According to booking data, the market had approximately 108,000 roundtrip point-to-point passengers in 2019, both those who flew non-stop with Alitalia and those who transited en route with other carriers. Booking data shows more transited than flew non-stop, presumably because of lower prices.

Photo: Dewa Ketut Partana I Shutterstock.

Mexico City was Rome’s third-largest Latin American market, behind only São Paulo and Buenos Aires. And from Mexico City, the Italian capital was the fourth-largest P2P European market, behind Madrid (that’s a surprise!), Paris CDG, London Heathrow, and Barcelona.

When all Mexico-Rome passengers are added, it was a P2P market of about 200,000 passengers, or 274 passengers daily each way. Obviously, Aeromexico will be actively targeting a proportion of this market.

Seventh European route

Analysis of Cirium schedules shows Aeromexico has seven European routes this northern summer. Five are from Mexico City, and Guadalajara and Monterrey have one each. Amsterdam, London Heathrow, Madrid, Paris CDG, and Rome are served.

Image: GCMap.

With eight daily Europe flights, Aeromexico’s network is as follows, based on the week beginning August 1st: