Mexico's Cancun airport passes pre-pandemic tourism mark

Mexico passed a milestone of sorts in September when the airport at the country's biggest coastal resort, Cancun, surpassed pre-pandemic levels of passengers

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico passed a milestone of sorts in September when the airport at the country’s biggest coastal resort, Cancun, surpassed pre-pandemic levels of passengers.

The Airports of the Southeast group, which runs the terminal at the Caribbean coast resort, said Wednesday it handled 1.66 million passengers in Cancun in September, 4.4% percent more than in the same month of 2019.

By January 2020, the coronavirus pandemic cut pasenger numbers drastically, and only about 854,000 passengers used the airport in September 2020.

It is unclear, but highly possible, that passenger levels at the Cancun airport for all of 2021 could equal or exceed the 2019 annual number.