Air France Marks 15 Years of Paris-Cancún Flights

Cancún, Quintana Roo — Air France celebrated 15 years of flying between Paris and Cancún on Wednesday, marking the anniversary with a ceremony at Cancún International Airport that also launched a new season of direct service from Paris Charles de Gaulle and highlighted 200 years of diplomatic relations between Mexico and France.

The event brought together Governor Mara Lezama Espinosa; Maarten Snijders, general director of Air France and KLM in Mexico; Emmanuel Cyril Grimbaum, France’s honorary consul in Quintana Roo; Benito Juárez municipal president Ana Paty Peralta; and Alejandro Rosel Ramírez, who handles institutional relations for the Cancún airport.

Officials welcomed passengers arriving on a newly landed flight, then held a ribbon-cutting, shared a cake and listened to mariachi music.

The route has operated continuously since it opened, with the only interruption a pause of several months during the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting Wednesday, Air France will run three flights a week between the two capitals, and the airline plans to gradually expand the schedule to seven days a week by December 14.

Governor Lezama described the route as a long-running success that has carried generations of travelers to the destination.

“A wonderful story that has recorded many more stories of many passengers who come to the World Capital of Vacations, who come when they propose here, who even get married here, who come back later with their children, with their grandsons or granddaughters. And the truth is that it is a great commercial alliance, it is a great strategic alliance,” Lezama said at the event.

France is one of the most important European markets for Quintana Roo, sending an estimated 230,000 to 250,000 visitors a year. That places France second among European sources for the Mexican Caribbean, behind the United Kingdom and ahead of Spain and Germany. European visitors account for roughly 60% of the tourism from that continent arriving in Mexico, and the region receives more than a million of them annually. French travelers show particular interest in the state’s archaeological sites and in touring different parts of the destination.