ASUR Hopes to See More Passengers in Mexican Airports this Year

ASUR, the Mexican airport operator, is confident that passenger traffic in the nation’s terminals could go estimates one better with a solid 5 percent spike in 2004 now that rumors about potential terrorist attacks are supposed to send larger amounts of U.S. travelers down to Mexico.

ASUR officials foresee a 5 percent increment in the number of airborne passenger from the 12.2 million people who flew there in 2003. This hike is augured for most of the nation’s air terminals, including the international airport of Cancun, Mexico’s premier travel destination.

“If trends keep on the right track, achieving this 5 percent increase will be a walk in the sun. I mean, we could move up way beyond that estimate,” said Adolfo Castro, chief of Management and Finances for ASUR. “The Madrid issue is certainly giving this trend a leg up,” he added.

Anyway, ASUR’s projections –reckoned in collaboration with Danish company Copenhagen Airports- is far more moderate than the double-digits expansion in the number of flown passengers posted in 2003 compared to the year before.

ASUR’s outcomes in 2003 –this is the only Latin American airport operator with shares in the stock exchange market- were higher than the 2002 numbers primarily because sales of plane tickets had taken a nosedive in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks in the U.S.

ASUR reported sales that tallied some $134 million in 2003, up 13.7 percent from 2002. Approximately 55 percent of ASUR’s record sales is owed to heavy traffic of international travelers, especially from the United States.

Some 10.4 million foreign tourists trekked to Mexican destinations all through 2003 for a 4.8 percent raise from 2002.

In a effort to jack up the inflow of European travelers at a time when the euro is going strong against the peso, the Mexican government believes the current state of uncertainty in the world is pushing more international tourists to go to Mexico.