November traffic slumps at ASUR

John Gallagher

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The effects of Hurricane Wilma continue to disrupt to traffic across the Mexican airport group's network

Mexican airport operator ASUR has confirmed a slump in passenger traffic during the month of November as a result of Hurricane Wilma, which devastated southeast Mexico at the end of October. Passenger numbers throughout its nine-airport network fell by 50.3% to 530,320 for the month compared to the same month in 2004. In October traffic fell by 18.8%, again principally as a result of the hurricane.

The international airports at Cancun and Cozumel, both situated close to the centre of the worst hurricane to hit the Yucatan Peninsula in recent years, were the two worst affected airports. Traffic at Cancun in November fell by 72.2% to 207,320 passengers and only 4,415 travellers used Cozumel airport, a decrease of 88% on the previous year. Merida and Villahermosa, the second and third most important airports in the network showed slight increases, due to their use as evacuation centres for passengers unable to use Cancun.

Airlines have delayed restarting services due to the lack of hotel accommodation—although the tourism area close to Riviera Maya is now operating normally the hotel zone in Cancun remains severely damaged. Cancun city officials estimated that only 25.9% of the municipality's hotel beds were available for occupation on December 1, well below the national and regional governments' target of 80% availability by December 15. According to Cancun tourist officials, new targets have been set of 54.7% availability by January 1, 77.8% by February 2 and 84.5% by March 1.