The first commercial flight left the airstrip of the new AIFA airport in Mexico City on its inauguration day. The Aeromexico flight left Saint Lucia for Villahermosa, Tabasco at 6:50 a.m.

AMLO’s project, the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) in Santa Lucía, officially began operating March 21 as scheduled. The first flight by Aeromexico was later followed by Viva Aerobus flights.

As of now, Volaris, Viva Aerobus, Aeroméxico and Conviasa will operate at the Santa Lucía airport offering trips to seven destinations. On Monday morning, a plane left Caracas, Venezuela, bound for the new Santa Lucía airport.

The Conviasa flight left the Simón Bolívar International Airport in Venezuela at 10:00 a.m., (8:00 a.m. Mexico City time) and is scheduled to land around 1:00 p.m. local time, making it AIFA’s first international flight. The A340-600 plane will land with 312 passengers.

The airport is also expecting to begin U.S. operations. During the Monday morning press conference at the AIFA, the airport’s new General Director, Isidoro Pastor Román, reported that flights to the United States from Saint Lucia are expected to begin in the second half of this year.

He said that negotiations with Delta are still in process, and that an agreement with Copa Airlines is currently being analyzed. A third airline is also being analyzed for U.S. flights, but Pastor did not reveal which airline that was.

Last week, Rogelio Jiménez Pons, the Undersecretary of Transportation of the Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation Secretariat (SICT) said interest had been expressed by U.S. airlines ahead of the airport’s official opening, but did not specify which airlines.

Since the announcement of an airport for Tulum in October of 2020, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has repeatedly said that once the Felipe Ángeles International Airport in Santa Lucía was operational, construction for the upcoming Tulum International Airport would begin.