Líneas Aéreas Azteca was an

airline An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in wh ...

based in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

. It operated domestic scheduled services and international services to the USA. Its main base was

Mexico City International Airport Mexico City International Airport ( es, link=yes, Aeropuerto Internacional de la Ciudad de México, AICM); officially ''Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez'' (Benito Juárez International Airport) is the main international airport serving ...

, with a hub at General Abelardo L. Rodríguez International Airport,

Tijuana Tijuana ( ,"Tijuana"
(US) and < ...

. The airline's operations were suspended by the government in March 2007 due to safety problems, and in October 2007 the Mexican government permanently revoked its

air operator's certificate An air operator's certificate (AOC) is the approval granted by a civil aviation authority (CAA) to an aircraft operator to allow it to use aircraft for commercial purposes. This requires the operator to have personnel, assets, and system in plac ...

because the company hadn't solved those problems. It was fined

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

$417,000 for failing to correct the problems or refund airfare for canceled flights to consumers.

History

The airline was established on 9 May 2000 and started operations on 1 June 2000, operating domestic services with

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two u ...

aircraft. It started up after TAESA closed down and some of the staff and assets were taken over. Under the name Azteca Airlines, the airline was a member of the

Airlines Reporting Corporation The Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) is a company that provides ticket transaction settlement services between airlines and travel agencies (both traditional and online) and the travel management companies that sell their products in the United ...

. Líneas Aéreas Azteca actively sought to expand international routes into the United States. In 2003, Azteca contributed a small amount to traffic through

Ontario International Airport Ontario International Airport is an international airport two miles east of downtown Ontario, in San Bernardino County, California, United States, about east of downtown Los Angeles and west of downtown San Bernardino. It is owned and operat ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, constituting ~0.5% of passenger traffic in each of January and October. During the first two months of 2007, the airline transported 113,592 passengers, or 2.3% of total passengers in Mexico.

Operations suspension

Following weeks of speculation about the airlines' financial situation, on 26 March 2007, the Secretariat of Communications and Transport of Mexico (SCT) issued a 90-day operations-desist claim that immediately halted the airline's operations, in order for it to respond to its financial credit, personnel training, and aircraft maintenance issues. Following an inspection from 5 to 23 March 2007 that revealed problems with safety procedures and employee training, the airline's operators certification was suspended. Following the suspension of operations, on 27 March 2007 the

International Air Transport Association The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff ...

(IATA) also suspended Líneas Aéreas Azteca from its worldwide Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP). Routes operated by Azteca were covered by 13 other airlines.

End of operations

On 10 October 2007, the General Civil Aeronautics Directorship (DGAC) of Mexico's Communications and Transport Secretariat permanently revoked Líneas Aéreas Azteca's air operator's certificate, because the airline did not have a sound financial statement after the previous suspension.

Destinations served

Mexico

Acapulco Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , also , nah, Acapolco), is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semicircular bay and has ...

Aguascalientes Aguascalientes (; ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Aguascalientes ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Aguascalientes), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. At 22°N and with an average altitude of a ...

Cancún Cancún ( ), often Cancun in English (without the accent; or ) is a city in southeast Mexico on the northeast coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. It is a significant tourist destination in Mexico and the seat ...

Chihuahua Chihuahua may refer to: Places * Chihuahua (state), a Mexican state **Chihuahua (dog), a breed of dog named after the state **Chihuahua cheese, a type of cheese originating in the state **Chihuahua City, the capital city of the state **Chihuahua Mu ...

Ciudad Juárez Ciudad Juárez ( ; ''Juarez City''. ) is the most populous city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is commonly referred to as Juárez and was known as El Paso del Norte (''The Pass of the North'') until 1888. Juárez is the seat of the Ju� ...

Culiacán Culiacán, officially Culiacán Rosales, is a city in northwestern Mexico, the capital and largest city of both the Culiacán Municipality and the state of Sinaloa. The city was founded on 29 September 1531, by the Spanish conquerors Lázar ...

Guadalajara Guadalajara ( , ) is a metropolis in western Mexico and the capital of the state of Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population of 1,385,629 people, making it the 7th largest city by population in Mexico, while the Guadalaj ...

- Focus city *

Hermosillo Hermosillo (), formerly called Pitic (as in ''Santísima Trinidad del Pitic'' and ''Presidio del Pitic''), is a city located in the center of the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. It is the municipal seat of the Hermosillo municipality, the ...

- Hub *

Mexicali Mexicali (; ) is the capital city of the Mexican state of Baja California. The city, seat of the Mexicali Municipality, has a population of 689,775, according to the 2010 census, while the Calexico–Mexicali metropolitan area is home to 1,000,0 ...

Monterrey Monterrey ( , ) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León, Mexico, and the third largest city in Mexico behind Guadalajara and Mexico City. Located at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the city is ancho ...

- Focus city *

Morelia Morelia (; from 1545 to 1828 known as Valladolid) is a city and municipal seat of the municipality of Morelia in the north-central part of the state of Michoacán in central Mexico. The city is in the Guayangareo Valley and is the capital and lar ...

Oaxaca Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the Federative Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 570 municipaliti ...

Puebla Puebla ( en, colony, settlement), officially Free and Sovereign State of Puebla ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its cap ...

Puerto Vallarta Puerto Vallarta ( or simply Vallarta) is a Mexican beach resort city situated on the Pacific Ocean's Bahía de Banderas in the Mexican state of Jalisco. Puerto Vallarta is the second largest urban agglomeration in the state after the Guadalaj ...

Tijuana Tijuana ( ,"Tijuana"
(US) and < ...

- Hub *

Toluca Toluca , officially Toluca de Lerdo , is the state capital of the State of Mexico as well as the seat of the Municipality of Toluca. With a population of 910,608 as of the 2020 census, Toluca is the fifth most populous city in Mexico. The city ...

Uruapan Uruapan is the second largest city in the Mexican state of Michoacán. It is located at the western edge of the Purépecha highlands, just to the east of the Tierra Caliente region. Since the colonial period, it has been an important city economic ...

Zacatecas , image_map = Zacatecas in Mexico (location map scheme).svg , map_caption = State of Zacatecas within Mexico , coordinates = , coor_pinpoint = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type ...

United States

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

** Laredo ** El Paso

Fleet

The Líneas Aéreas Azteca fleet consisted on the following aircraft: *3

Boeing 737-700 The Boeing 737 Next Generation, commonly abbreviated as 737NG, or 737 Next Gen, is a narrow-body aircraft powered by two jet engines and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Launched in 1993 as the third generation derivative of the Boeing ...

- XA-AEP, XA-AEQ, XA-TWF *6

Boeing 737-300 The Boeing 737 Classic is a series of narrow-body airliners produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, the second generation of the Boeing 737 series of aircraft. Development began in 1979 and the first variant, the 737-300, first flew in Februa ...

- XA-AAU, XA-AAV, XA-CAS, XA-TWG, XA-UCL, XA-UCP

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lineas Aereas Azteca Defunct airlines of Mexico Airlines established in 2000 Airlines disestablished in 2007