Possible Merger of Aeromexico, Mexicana Makes the Rounds

The Cintra Consortium, owner of Mexico’s major airlines, is sketching out the fusion of two of the country’s top carriers –Mexicana and Aeromexico- to sell the resulting company to the private sector as the two airlines keep on inching back in the black in a piecemeal fashion.

The Cintra Consortium raked in $127 million during the third quarter of the ongoing year after taking a screaming $168 million nosedive in 2003.

“Good quarterly numbers paved the way for a strong recovery of Cintra’s capital, which jumped from little more than 2 billion Mexican pesos by the end of June 2003 to 3.2 billion pesos in September this year, up an incredible 62 percent,” said Rogelio Gasca Neri, the group’s president and CEO.

Now with half of all shares in the hands of the State, Cintra awaits the go-ahead of the Federal Competition Commission (CFC) to commence an operation that’s been on hold for several years: the sellout of its companies to the private sector.

The operation is supposed to come through in 2005. On the one hand, it implies the merger of Aeromexico and Mexicana; on the other hand, these airlines should be stripped of their own affiliates, Aerolitoral and Aerocaribe, to meld them together as well.

At the end of the process scheduled for 2005, a huge airline that comprises the entire national territory and several destinations overseas –out of the fusion of Aeromexico and Mexicana- will be ready to fly, while another one, begotten from the unification of Aerolitoral and Aerocaribe, will be used for domestic and charter flights.