Aeromexico Connect

**Aerolitoral, S.A. de C.V.**, DBA **Aeroméxico Connect**, and formerly known as **Aerolitoral,** is the regional airline of Aeroméxico operating Embraer E-190 aircraft, with crew bases in Mexico City and Monterrey. It is headquartered in Monterrey. It operates feeder services to AeroMéxico's hub airports, using four-digit flight numbers. It is considered the biggest and most important regional airline in Mexico, offering more than 300 scheduled flights daily to 43 destinations in Mexico, 11 in the United States, five in Central America, and two in the Caribbean. Its main bases are Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Monterrey. Aeromexico Connect flights are marketed as Aeromexico.

## History

The airline was established in 1988 as Servicios Aéreos Litoral, to later become a subsidiary of Aeroméxico on December 1, 1990. It started with a fleet of 4 NAMC YS-11 aircraft in 1988 (XA-ROL, XA-ROV, XA-RPU, and XA-RRG) and was originally based in Veracruz. In February 1992, AeroMéxico started another regional feeder airline, Aerovías de Poniente, S.A. de C.V. based in Guadalajara using Fairchild Metros. The fleet was replaced and expanded quite fast between 1991 and 1995 and grew to a total of 29 Fairchild Metro III and Fairchild Metro 23 aircraft between the two feeders.

In 1991, the main base was moved to Monterrey and in 1992, Aeroponiente started operations from Guadalajara. The pilot seniority list was merged, and a common paint scheme was adopted using the Aeroméxico logo. Since 1992, Aerolitoral has been the only source of pilots for Aeroméxico with more than 400 pilots transferred until today. In 1993, a small base was opened in Culiacán and after 3 months was moved to Chihuahua. By 1995, the commuter airline had three bases with 29 airplanes.

The route network expanded all across the north of Mexico, and some routes to the United States were operated for a brief period, such as: Harlingen, McAllen, Corpus Christi, and Austin in Texas as well as to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The main U.S. routes operated in this period were San Antonio, Tucson, El Paso, and Phoenix.

In 1996, the two airlines were merged into AeroLitoral S.A de C.V., causing some labor problems to continue during 1997, and a pilot strike in the same year. There was a high demand for a bigger airplane in the route network and the Fairchild Metro 19 seater was not enough. After a long selection, Saab 340B's were introduced in late 1997. In 1998 new services to the United States were added from Piedras Negras. and from Chihuahua to Dallas.

In early 1999, AeroLitoral was operating 29 Fairchild Metros and 6 Saab 340Bs. One Fairchild Metro XA-RYY had been converted to freighter and operations to Mexico City were resumed on behalf of Aeromexpress. In August 1999 a new CEO was appointed and Raúl Sáenz Campos replaced Carlos Treviño Treviño after a long time being at the airline. On December of the same year, the directive board decided to start a fleet renewal process, by replacing the first 3 Fairchild Metros .

In the period between the years 2000 and 2002, 13 more Saab 340Bs were added to replace Metros, with a peak fleet of 22 Saab 340B's. On the third quarter of 2001, services to San Diego via Mexicali, to Zacatecas via Puerto Vallarta, and Monterrey were launched. Nevertheless, these services were discontinued shortly after 9/11 Attacks. On September 6, 2001, there was an accident without any fatalities, it was a Saab 340B's with registration XA-ACK which crash-landed 15 miles southeast of Tijuana. The airplane suffered fuel starvation, due to a false indication in the flight deck fuel gauges, caused by a defective element on the system, reflecting more fuel than the aircraft actually had.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, AeroLitoral experienced a drop in air traffic and downsized the fleet in order to survive. Services to San Diego, El Paso, and Laredo were canceled. San Antonio, Phoenix, and Tucson were reduced, moreover with the growth of Aviacsa on the domestic market with its Boeing 737-200 fleet invading the most profitable routes from Monterrey to León, Ciudad Juárez, Culiacán, and Guadalajara. The small commuter experienced severe financial troubles, and in 2002, many employees were laid off, among them 50 pilots. In 2002, services to Los Angeles and Ontario, California were introduced on behalf of Aeroméxico, while services to Phoenix and Laredo were cancelled.

## Name Change to Aeromexico Connect

In 2005, the first scheduled services in and out of Mexico City on behalf of Aeroméxico were introduced to Ciudad Obregón and Los Mochis, using ERJ-145 aircraft. During this year, five more ERJ-145s were introduced to the fleet, introducing new routes to central Mexico and the southeast of the country, as well as increasing the size of the fleet to 10 aircraft.

In 2006, AeroLitoral took over services from Mexico City to Campeche and Durango, previously operated by Aeromar on behalf of Aeroméxico, and resumed operations to Reynosa, Oaxaca, and other Aeroméxico non-revenue city pairs. By the end of 2006, an ERJ crew base in Mexico City was established, 13 more ERJs were introduced to the fleet, most of them in addition, bringing the number of 23 by the end of the year.

2007: this year, AeroLitoral returned to Austin on behalf of Aeroméxico from Mexico City, reopened the hub in Guadalajara with ERJ's, fleet which grew to 32 frames. In November 2007, Aeroméxico announced that AeroLitoral was going to become Aeroméxico Connect once the E-190's arrived, and so did. The airline changed its corporate name, image, and introduced a new philosophy of complementing Aeroméxico on some domestic and international flights, instead of only feeding the airline's hubs. The first four brand-new Embraer ERJ 190 arrived in October 2007 and early 2008, and the airline announced an order for 12 more frames that started arriving in early 2009. On November, SkyTeam painted Aeroméxico Connect's E-145 in SkyTeam livery.

## Fleet

As of September 2021 the Aeromexico Connect Fleet consists of...

**Aeroméxico Connect Fleet**
 Embraer 190