Volaris begins MKE-GDL twice-weekly starting March 2nd. Like many of their northern US cities the flight is a late evening northbound and a red eye southbound.

Northbound
4:53pm GDL
8:55pm MKE

Southbound
12:32am MKE
5:32am GDL

It doesn't appear fully loaded on the Volaris website quite yet -- the flights are there but fares are high and no connecting markets exist yet. But it looks like there should be some decent connections to other Mexican cities and Costa Rica with this schedule.

Very nice to see this actually come to pass after they applied earlier this year along with Austin. Austin started months back and so I was worried they couldn't overcome some issues in MKE. Here's hoping it does well.

I wonder if they've ever thought about a MSP Route?

Does MKE have any other Mexico VFR flights? Between Milwaukee proper, the north suburbs of Chicago for whom MKE makes more sense than MDW and some connections, this ought to do well.

Great news for MKE considering the Mexican population especially in south side Milwaukee area.

Cubsrule wrote:

Does MKE have any other Mexico VFR flights? Between Milwaukee proper, the north suburbs of Chicago for whom MKE makes more sense than MDW and some connections, this ought to do well.

No VFR markets to Mexico. A good amount of beach flying primarily concentrated from December into April, but nothing for VFR.

2015 estimates have about 230k people of Hispanic origin in southeastern Wisconsin, plus another 145k in Lake County IL, the northeastern most county of Illinois just over the boarder. The large majority of Hispanics in this part of the country are from Mexico -- perhaps 75%.

I find it interesting that they serve both MDW and ORD and now MKE as well.

knope2001 wrote:

Cubsrule wrote:

Does MKE have any other Mexico VFR flights? Between Milwaukee proper, the north suburbs of Chicago for whom MKE makes more sense than MDW and some connections, this ought to do well.

No VFR markets to Mexico. A good amount of beach flying primarily concentrated from December into April, but nothing for VFR.

2015 estimates have about 230k people of Hispanic origin in southeastern Wisconsin, plus another 145k in Lake County IL, the northeastern most county of Illinois just over the boarder. The large majority of Hispanics in this part of the country are from Mexico -- perhaps 75%.

I find it interesting that they serve both MDW and ORD and now MKE as well.

I don't know about Milwaukee, but among the Mexican diaspora in the Chicago area, the GDL area is quite overrepresented. And travelers seem to prefer Mexican carriers. TZ served MDW-GDL, even using 757s IINM, but they are the exception.

obrienct wrote:

I wonder if they've ever thought about a MSP Route?

Volaris did apply for a boatload of routes this past summer to Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis, St Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Boston New York, Houston and New Orleans.

It's hard to know what to make of these applications, however because they anre so incredibly broad, include lots of "beach" city pairs (not just traditional VFR like Guadalajara, Mexico City, etc.) and they often include requests for beyond service to Canada or Europe.

http://www.regulations.gov/document?D=D ... -0135-0001

From Acapulco, Hermosillo, Mexico City, Toluca, Monterrey, Oaxaca,Puerto Escondido, Tampico, Veracruz, Villahermosa, and lxtapa/Zihuatanejo
to Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and St. Louis,
and beyond to Canada;

From Acapulco, Chihuahua, Guadalajara, Guaymas, Hermosillo,Huatulco, La Paz, Loreto, Manzanillo, Mazatlan, Mexico City, Toluca,Monterrey, Puerto Escondido, Puerto Vallarta, San Jose del Cabo, and
lxtapa/ Zihuatanejo
to Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, and Baltimore
and beyond to Canada;

From Acapulco, Guadalajara, Huatulco, Loreto, Manzanillo, Mazatlan, Mexico City, Toluca, Monterrey, Puerto Vallarta, San Jose del Cabo, and lxtapa/ Zihuatanejo
to Boston and New York
and beyond to Europe.

From Cancun, Cozumel, Guadalajara, Merida, Mexico City, Toluca, and Monterrey '
to Houston and New Orleans
and beyond to Canada and Europe;

From Guadalajara, Huatulco, Merida, Mexico City, Toluca, and Oaxaca
to Miami, and beyond

When they requested Austin and Milwaukee, it was just from GDL and that's what they ended up flying. There are around 175 city pairs involved in this request (not including the "beyond" possibilities to Canada and Europe.). Given the huge number of city pairs it's nearly certain many will never be flown. So again, it's hard to know what to make of this application for any particular city or city pair.

Cubsrule wrote:

I don't know about Milwaukee, but among the Mexican diaspora in the Chicago area, the GDL area is quite overrepresented. And travelers seem to prefer Mexican carriers. TZ served MDW-GDL, even using 757s IINM, but they are the exception.

i seem to recall that Jalisco (the state where GDL is) is the most common origin in Milwaukee as well. When it comes to the northward migrations (African-Americans and Hispanics) Milwaukee's experience tends to echo Chicago's -- identical but a notch lesser and a notch later. So I'm guessing the origins within Mexico are similar.

Maybe Chicagoan are tired of TSA at OHare or Midway. MKE is less hassle and long line. MKE is faster to get customs and board plane quicker than Chicago airports.

Q

Q wrote:

Maybe Chicagoan are tired of TSA at OHare or Midway. MKE is less hassle and long line. MKE is faster to get customs and board plane quicker than Chicago airports.

If nothing else this probably does expose MKE to a population which may not even consider it, especially the large Mexican population in Lake County IL. Of course they may not fly frequently, but even people of fairly modest means may occasionally fly to visit family in California, or to Florida for a honeymoon, or Vegas for a milestone anniversary. Getting MKE on their radar is not a bad thing.

As for not finding low fares earlier, now there are $240 round trip fares MKE-GDL-MKE in March.

I remember the airport director at Milwaukee saying in the Milwaukee Business journal that they wanted to start in fall but something happened and that they would try to have them start in 2017. I'm glad to see this happen for MKE. He also stated that they were hoping to have AA start service from MIA-MKE in 2017 and that they were working with AA to start it. Hopefully that will be the next new destination for MKE.

knope2001 wrote:

obrienct wrote:

I wonder if they've ever thought about a MSP Route?

Volaris did apply for a boatload of routes...
From Guadalajara, Mexico City....Detroit

The good thing for Volaris and Detroit is that they can capture both VFR and Auto traffic going to GDL. The 2 largest immigration regions from Mexico in Detroit (go ask the people and they'll tell you) is Monterrey and Guadalajara, MTY is already going to be served 2x daily (AM, DL) so additional flights aren't necessarily needed for that, but DTW needs a nonstop to GDL, with DL ending LAX-GDL that may shift things to DTW but Volaris would make sense too. I suppose extra competition for VFR traffic heading to the Mexico City region wouldn't hurt either.

Great news for MKE! Finally a year round international flight that is not to YYZ. lol. I hope the flight does well.

knope2001 wrote:

.

As for not finding low fares earlier, now there are $240 round trip fares MKE-GDL-MKE in March.

I'm not finding fares with ITA Matrix or Orbitz but Volaris' site is pricing.

A $240 r/t fare, after taxes and airport & customs fees doesn't leave them much to fly the plane. Here is the tax breakdown on a 4500 Peso fare (about US$220).

(Pasted from Volaris' site) Don't be confused by the $
TAXES PER CUSTOMER
Tax Code Description Price Per Pax
AY September 11th Security Fee $114
US US Transportation Tax $726
XF Passenger Facility Charge $92
XD TUA $882
XA APHIS User Fee $81
XY Immigration User Fee $143
YC Customs User Fee $112

Total fees and taxes per customer $2,150

Nearly half the ticket price (of the lowest non-club fare I found in a quick search) goes to the tax men.

Wow great news! Pity it's a redeye, but you've got to start somewhere!

MKE is a great airport, and it's great that they're getting some growth. If it was a little bigger it could be a greater alternative to ORD.

This is kinda off topic but I can imagine a hyperloop connecting ORD with MKE and just a shuttle to carry passengers around between the two. It's an idea, but MKE would need to be bigger.

MKE is a great airport, and it's great that they're getting some growth. If it was a little bigger it could be a greater alternative to ORD.

This is kinda off topic but I can imagine a hyperloop connecting ORD with MKE and just a shuttle to carry passengers around between the two. It's an idea, but MKE would need to be bigger.

Mexican carriers own ORD outside of CUN and SJD. Volaris / AeroMexico / Interjet could do Durango, Morelia, Leon, Potisi, and Agucent.. easily from ORD.

Someone elsewhere wondered if Volaris service to MKE might be seasonal. But thinking about it, is there much of a season to service like this?

--Is there much of a "season" for this travel? Like other leisure segments school schedules matter for those with kids. But on the flip side Mexico is warm and perhaps winter is a popular time to head to Mexico?

--Does this sort of market virtually all originate in the US? Of course many who migrated north left poverty, but they often send money home and perhaps may buy tickets for family in Mexico to visit.

I haven't really thought a whole lot about this travel segment (VFR travel of ethnic Mexican in the US) before. It may not follow some of the patterns of other leisure/VFR travel markets. Anybody know?

Press item, including some additional detail.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/money/bus ... /95326260/

Hopefully they can make this stick and then maybe add another route or two (MEX, CUN). I'm pleased to see that its going to be flown with an A320 from the start.

A few additional notes from local media:

In addition to the newly opened Mexican consulate in the city, Milwaukee was chosen as the host city for the League of United Latin American Citizens 2019 Convention, which will bring about 20,000 people to Milwaukee over five days.

The new service will involve shifting some U.S. Customs and Border Protection work to accommodate the flight schedules, something that U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees Customs and Border Protection, became involved in negotiating.

Johnson wrote to the agency’s commissioner in May, urging the agency to cooperate with Milwaukee airport officials in arranging for customs agent staffing that would permit the flights.

I believe that was a big hurdle which took some serious arm-twisting to overcome. You'd think since we already have ongoing late-night international arrivals 4-5 months of the year this wouldn't have been a difficult addition but apparently it was an issue.

Judging from the flight times they are expecting most of the pax to be from/and going to the Wisconsin/Northern Illinois area. There are really no available connections from MKE.

lavalampluva wrote:

There are really no available connections from MKE.

Does Volaris offer connections? I'm trying to book MKE-GDL-MEX but its only letting me input GDL as the destination, even though there are several flights on to MEX that day. I flew Volaris once ORD-MEX and found them to be very good. The service was fine, the equipment appeared to be decent, and the price was right. I hope they are successful, but it wouldn't surprise me if these flights get dropped within a year.

Any word on the new international terminal for MKE? There was a bunch of news on that earlier this summer and now its gone quiet.

Mexicana757 wrote:

If Y4 were to open San Luis Potosi or Aguascalientes out of Chicago they would probably choose MDW to start the flights as they seem to prefer it for VFR markets. AM has tried VFR markets out of ORD and hasn't had success keeping them open They flew DGO and ZCL a few years ago. MLM is only operated as a seasonal flight. Interjet just started flights to Chicago and it looks like they want everyone to connect through MEX.

We are really dusting off cobwebs here, but I think MX may also have tried ORD-DGO briefly in the early 2000s. It did not last long if they did.

illinoisman wrote:

lavalampluva wrote:

There are really no available connections from MKE.

Does Volaris offer connections? I'm trying to book MKE-GDL-MEX but its only letting me input GDL as the destination, even though there are several flights on to MEX that day.

They do from other US markets, so I suspect it’s a matter of updates getting out there.

HermansCVR580 wrote:

Any word on the new international terminal for MKE? There was a bunch of news on that earlier this summer and now its gone quiet.

From everything I’ve heard the intentions are there but it takes time. When United moves over to C (mid January-ish) and E is finally vacant it will be mothballed for the time being. I believe feasibility studies are underway on E, but things take time. The footprint and configuration of E make it nearly impossible to retrofit into an IAB without serious reconstruction and buildout. That begs the question would full demo and new construction be money better spent. There’s also the question of departures. Do you make a new IAB work for departures, too? Departures can and often do leave from domestic gates, but airlines prefer not to have to continually tow from the IAB arrival to a domestic departure gate. Even if IAB is shiny and new it will suffer from the same issues E does today – limited amenities and a stand-alone security checkpoint that is hectic when there’s a departure and idle when there isn’t.

There are efforts toward a single checkpoint and new vendors within the secure area, and that’s not bad for C and D. But to link a new IAB (replacing E) to that would be a challenge – cumbersome to physically connect it without it seeming like a long hamster tunnel, and the international gates would be pretty far from shops and restaurants. My personal opinion would be to only have the IAB for arrivals -- better customer experience to departure the domestic concourses even though it means a tow.

So wheels are turning toward replacing E with an IAB but it's still in formation. And whatever they do...even if they would demolish E and not build a new IAB...will take some time.

It appears Mexican Fiesta made a big impression on the Volaris team. This is the second such story of airline decision makers being impressed by one of Milwaukee's string of summer ethnic festivals -- I believe Kevin Healy said awhile back that he was rather positively surprised by Milwaukee after a visit including Irish Fest. He came thinking MKE might be a possible way to tap the north half of Chicagoland but left seeing Milwaukee as a vibrant market in its own right.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/money/...ukee/96506292/

A few main points:

Mexican airline sees opportunity in Milwaukee

The process for landing new international air service at Mitchell International Airport began at one of Milwaukee’s ethnic festivals.

“Two years ago we sent a sales team to Mexican Fiesta,” said Miguel Aguiñiga, the manager of international markets for Volaris Airlines, during a telephone interview from his office in Mexico City.

“The team found out there are a lot of people of Mexican descent, as well as a lot of people in the area interested in traveling to Guadalajara or to Mexico.

"That’s why we started to look into the market," Aguiñiga said. "We started to do the research for planning a new flight out of Wisconsin.”

-----

"Among Milwaukee’s foreign-born Latino population, the overwhelming majority (87%) was born in Mexico," according to the study.

--In deciding whether to enter the market, Volaris also discovered additional information that solidified the decision to add Milwaukee service.

"Right now, Mexico represents the second-largest trading partner with Wisconsin for exports," Aguiñiga said. "We found out there are 900 companies based in Wisconsin that currently export to Mexico. "And, 69% of those companies send people to Mexico yearly. And of those, about half make multiple trips."

Exports from Wisconsin to Mexico are valued at $2.9 billion, according to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.

Companies that have a presence in Mexico include some of the biggest names in Milwaukee and Wisconsin business: Johnson Controls, Kohler, Manpower, Quad/Graphics, Rockwell Automation.

"A lot of business travelers throughout the year can use this direct flight," Aguiñiga said

-----

Volaris began selling the Milwaukee to Guadalajara service late last year.

"We’re very confident about the market response," Aguiñiga said. "We started selling this market in late November, and the future bookings look really, really good. We’ll see how the market grows and what our passengers really demand."
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As long as their are flights to Chicago to cities other than CUN, PVR, and SJD, I don't care what airport it's from.

That will be one long layover for their crews!

"A lot of business travelers throughout the year can use this direct flight,"

I gotta be honest - I don't think a lot of business travelers are going to take a redeye to GDL. No disrespect to Volaris, this service is a great addition to MKE, but traveling for business, the preference will be where you can get more connections, FF benefits, saner flight times, and a chance of an upgrade.

airplaneboy wrote:

That will be one long layover for their crews!

And for passengers, from GDL connecting at MKE. There are only a couple connecting flights you could make, if there are no problems in customs, and if your fast of foot. Otherwise you're waiting until 6:00 am to make you're flight. Connections in MKE heading to GDL are much more friendly.

scutfarcus wrote:

I gotta be honest - I don't think a lot of business travelers are going to take a redeye to GDL.

The article seems to indicate that it won't be their main focus.

"Our market is the 'VFR' market: visiting family and relatives," Aguiñiga said. "That’s where we saw quite an opportunity.
"Milwaukee looks like a great opportunity for our main market — Mexican descendants going and visiting family," he added.