A Mexicana Airbus A319 (XA-UER) taxis for departure at JFK. (Photo by Mark Lawrence)
Mexican airline Compania Mexicana de Aviacion, North America’s oldest airline and the world’s third oldest airline, on Wednesday suspended ticket sales after filing for creditor protection a day earlier.
On Tuesday, the company filed for insolvency proceedings in Mexico and bankruptcy protection in the United States to bring cost structure into line with market conditions.
The company then said that passengers will not be affected as part of the proceedings, since the airliner will continue to render services normally while it restructures its liabilities.
But on Wednesday, the company in a new statement said it has stopped ticket sales at 07:00 p.m. EST until further notice on all international flights and some domestics flights.
In the statement, the company said that this decision does not affect MexicanaClick or MexicanaLink because both companies are not part of the bankruptcy process. MexicanaClick is Mexicana’s low cost airline while MexicanaLink is the company’s regional airline.
For passengers who already bought tickets, the company said it will continue to operate its scheduled flights.
According to the company, its current cost structure, particularly those associated to flight crews, makes it financially non-viable even after aggressive efforts to boost productivity by expanding and renewing its fleet.
Mexicana suffered a sharp drop in demand due to the global financial crisis and the AH1N1 flu epidemic of 2009.
