One airline will suspend Fresno service this fall. Where does it fly, when will it resume?
One of two airlines offering nonstop international flights to and from Fresno is suspending service on its Fresno-Guadalajara route for two months in the fall before the winter holiday season.
Aeromexico, which has flown between Fresno and Guadalajara in the Mexican state of Jalisco since 2011, has no nonstop service at Fresno Yosemite International Airport on its online schedule for the months of September and October.
The airline’s booking tool reflects that Aeromexico’s nonstop flights to Guadalajara are available through Aug. 28. After that, the only Aeromexico service from Fresno to Guadalajara is with Aeromexico’s alliance partner Delta Air Lines via multiple connections – first a Delta flight to Salt Lake City, then a second Delta flight to Mexico City, and finally an Aeromexico flight from Mexico City to Guadalajara.
Those multiple connections translate to a travel time of about 9 1/2 hours to get from Fresno to Guadalajara, compared to a nonstop flight of less than four hours.
The nonstop flights between Fresno and Guadalajara are scheduled to resume on Nov. 2, in time for travel for the Thanksgiving holidays.
A second Mexico-based airline, Volaris, also offers nonstop service between Fresno and Guadalajara, and the carrier’s website shows no interruption in its flight schedule. Volaris also flies from Fresno to the Mexican cities of Leon and Morelia. Volaris also provided nonstop service between Fresno and Mexico City from November 2020 through July 2022, Fresno Yosemite International Airport spokesperson Vikkie Calderon told The Fresno Bee, but it no longer operates that nonstop route.
Aeromexico and Volaris both launched their service in Fresno within weeks of one another in the spring of 2011, about seven months after Mexicana Airlines abruptly ceased operations and filed for bankruptcy.
Together, Aeromexico and Volaris flights from Fresno carried more than 157,000 passengers in 2022, the largest volume of departures on international flights since the two companies began their service in Fresno. Through the first three months of 2023 – the latest data available from the U.S. Department of Transportation – international passenger counts are ahead of the 2022 pace.
Aeriomexico representatives did not respond to an email query from The Fresno Bee about the reason for the two-month hiatus in the Guadalajara service.
Enilria.com, an airline schedule-tracking website, reported Tuesday that Aeromexico is pausing several other routes between U.S. cities and Guadalajara, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Salt Lake City and San Francisco. Each of those routes will reportedly be on hold between Sept. 1 and Nov. 30.
The site also reported that service between Los Angeles International Airport and Monterrey, Mexico, is being dropped as of Sept. 1 with no resumption date specified.
