Volaris launches Guadalajara service, becomes 3rd carrier with direct Utah-to-Mexico flights

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Budget carrier Volaris launched flights from Salt Lake City International Airport to Guadalajara on Monday.
• The airline becomes the 14th to operate at the airport and the third after Aeromexico and Delta to offer direct flights to Mexico.
• Volaris is targeting the growing Mexican and Mexican American population as well as tourists wanting to visit Mexico.

SALT LAKE CITY — Maria Cervantes had been searching for a low-cost option to travel to Mexico, almost losing hope.

"We were putting it off," said the Salt Lake woman.

With Volaris' plans to launch flights between Salt Lake City and Guadalajara, though, a lower-cost option that fit her budget finally emerged, and there she was Monday at Salt Lake City International Airport, waiting to board the inaugural flight to the Mexican city. "This was a great opportunity," she said.

Volaris formally announced plans last February to launch three weekly flights from Salt Lake City to Guadalajara in February, and airport and airline officials and others gathered Monday ahead of the first flight to mark the occasion. A mariachi band was also on hand playing music.

Antonio Cruz Diaz, acting consul general of the Mexican Consulate in Salt Lake City, called it a "joyful occasion." Links like the Salt Lake City-Guadalajara flights every Monday, Wednesday and Friday "bring people together, bring business together, bring family together," he said.

Volaris, based in Mexico City, becomes the 14th airline to provide service at the Salt Lake City airport and the third carrier to offer direct flights to Mexico after Delta and Aeromexico. As of May, Aeromexico offered seven flights a week to Guadalajara while Delta served Cancun, Los Cabos and Mexico City, also with seven flights per week to each locale, according to the Salt Lake City airport website.

Nate Lavin, air service and business development manager for the Salt Lake City International Airport, said the recent overhaul of the airport expanded the ability of the facility to accommodate international carriers, leading to Volaris' entry into the Utah market.

"This has been a multiyear undertaking for us. Salt Lake City International Airport has been courting Volaris for well over six or seven years. It's not an overnight process to bring a new airline to your city, and so we're happy that they're finally here offering affordable fares throughout Mexico," he said.

Delta launched nonstop service between Salt Lake City and Lima, Peru, last December, marking the first commercial flights from Utah to South America though the seasonal offering ended last January.

Volaris flies throughout Mexico and to 24 U.S. cities, including Salt Lake City, according to Ryan Isemeyer, senior manager of network planning for Volaris. He said the company sees economic opportunity in Utah with the growing population of Mexicans and Mexican Americans.

"There's a large Mexican population here in Salt Lake City. It's a market that we don't serve, and we see the opportunity to offer more competitive fares that allow us to connect families between the United States and Mexico," he said. "Primarily we're catering to what I would consider VFR customers, those that are visiting family and relatives, as well as those that are looking to explore Mexico for the first time."

Volaris' niche, he said, is offering "economically friendly" base fares with passengers able to add on perks and additional services as they see fit. He also noted the demand for air service between the United States and Mexico, calling it "one of the largest international travel corridors in the world."

Rachel Bremer, global market director for the Utah Office of Tourism, noted increasing efforts by Utah officials around Mexico to promote the state as a travel destination.

"This flight really ushers in the opportunity to welcome more visitors from different regions in a cost-effective way," she said. It's a low-cost carrier, she noted, and its entry into the market "adds some competition, which we always love to see."

Some of the travelers taking the first flight to Guadalajara on Monday were happy Volaris launched in Utah. Leonardo Zuniga, en route to the Mexican city after a visit to family in Utah, said the flight prices are perhaps 30% lower than flights on Aeromexico.

"The cost is more accessible," he said.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Tim Vandenack

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Tim Vandenack covers immigration, multicultural issues and Northern Utah for KSL. He worked several years for the Standard-Examiner in Ogden and has lived and reported in Mexico, Chile and along the U.S.-Mexico border.