Mexico fails revision to regain FAA category 1 status

Mexico has been trying to regain FAA category one status since being downgraded to category 2 (the FAA’s lowest category) in May last year, with the FAA citing that the country does not meet International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) safety standards; Mexico has been unable to regain the status with the FAA continuing to cite many safety issues with the country’s aviation industry.

The Mexican government pledged to work effectively to recover the previous category one status; however, after more than a year with its category two status, the country still did not manage to upgrade to category 1; the FAA’s evaluation from the 13-17 of June found that the country still did not meet these standards and so was failed by the FAA keeping its category two status. Possible contributing factors to this were the Volaris incident in Mexico City in which two planes almost collided, the subsequent near miss involving an Aeromexico plane, and the unorganized opening of the city’s new airport (NLU).

Category 2 status heavily restricts Mexican carriers’ ability to add services to the US as it prohibits new services and routes. The downgraded status has greatly affected Mexican airlines as they struggle to compete in the Mexico-US routes; participation from Mexican airlines fell from 31.6% before the downgrade to 17.6% after; according to analysts, Mexican carriers who serve the US market have lost around $242 million US.

In the meantime, US carriers serving Mexico have been increasing their number of services and overall market share. Nonetheless, US carriers are also affected by the downgrade as they cant fully operate their codeshare agreements nor add new partnerships.