Traveling to the Mayan Riviera in Mexico is about to get easier for Americans.
Starting this week, visitors to the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula can say goodbye to the crowded halls of the Cancún airport and potentially hours-long drive south; U.S.-based flights to the recently opened Tulum International Airport start Wednesday.
American Airlines and Delta Air Lines begin flights on March 28, followed by United Airlines on March 31. The new routes will connect Tulum to major hubs like Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, and Newark.
Air Canada starts flying to Tulum in May, and JetBlue Airways and Panama’s Copa Airlines in June.
“Imagine taking a morning flight from the United States, and by lunchtime, you’re sipping margaritas on our beautiful beach,” said Laura Diver, the marketing manager for Colibri Boutique Hotels, which manages several properties in Tulum.
The Tulum airport, like many of the big recently opened infrastructure projects championed by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, remains a work in progress.
Construction continues despite some domestic flights beginning in December. Karla Cayetano, a reservations manager at the Kanan Tulum resort, said workers were still “finishing some details” to the terminal and access road. Despite this, she said some of the resort’s guests are already arriving there rather than in Cancún.
Ground transportation options are limited and costs are high. David Ortiz Mena, the president of the Tulum Hotel Association, highlighted this as a “great concern” in a December statement. Talks with the airport and government authorities over lowering the ground transportation tax were underway in mid-March.
And protesters have blocked the access road to the airport, and adjacent Tren Maya station, over land rights.
The issues are not unlike those that have plagued the Tren Maya since it opened in December. Trains are limited and delays are frequent on the ambitious and controversial 947-mile passenger rail loop pushed by the Mexican president. The booking system has been unreliable. Much of the track that will eventually encircle the Yucatán has yet to open.
But the Tulum airport, like the Tren Maya, is widely expected to significantly improve access to the Mayan Riviera once the kinks are worked out.
San Miguel Times
Newsroom
