Canada Surpasses U.S. as Top Air Route to Mexico’s Caribbean in Historic Shift

Cancún, Quintana Roo — Canada has overtaken the United States as the leading source of air traffic to Mexico’s Caribbean coast, marking a historic shift in tourism patterns driven by political factors and market decisions.

New data reveals that while routes from the U.S. to Cancún lost passengers in 2025, flights from Canada surged by up to 26%, dramatically reshaping the international ranking of air connections to the region.

Route Performance Shifts

Six of the top ten routes experienced declines in passenger volume. The Cancún-Chicago route saw the sharpest drop at 11.7%, followed by Cancún-Dallas at 4.5% and Atlanta-Cancún at 2%. The New York connection also decreased by approximately 4%.

In contrast, routes linking Cancún with Toronto and Montreal grew spectacularly. The Toronto route increased 26.1% to surpass 1.3 million passengers, while the Montreal route rose 24% with over 737,000 travelers. These represent the most significant variations since records began and explain why the Canadian market climbed to first place in the ranking.

Overall, Mexico received just over 2.8 million Canadian visitors in 2025, an 11% annual increase. Of these, 1.6 million arrived directly through Quintana Roo, positioning Canada as the second-largest source market after the United States and accounting for 13.6% of total international tourists.

The annual ranking places the United States first with 13.7 million passengers (5.29 million to Cancún alone), followed by Canada (2.8 million total, 1.6 million to Cancún), and then the United Kingdom, Colombia, and Argentina.

The “Trump Effect” and Airline Response

Analysts point to President Donald Trump’s rhetoric as a factor in the decline of U.S. routes. In February 2026, Trump again proposed making Canada the 51st U.S. state, following previous suggestions about annexing Greenland and Venezuela. This idea generated backlash among Canadian public opinion and added to concerns about restrictive immigration policies and threats of 100% tariffs if Ottawa signed agreements with China.

In this context, many northern travelers chose to avoid the United States and opted for Mexican beaches instead.

Francisco Madrid, director of STARC, summarized the trend change: “For the first time in history, it’s not the routes to the United States that are the busiest, but those connecting points between Canada and Mexico.”

The academic noted that airlines capitalized on the “Trump effect” to strengthen their Canadian offerings, estimating that seats between the two countries grew between 12% and 13%. It’s no surprise that companies like WestJet and Air Canada now hold about 70% of the market, with new routes like the seasonal Cancún-Calgary flight announced for the 2026-2027 winter season.

Promotion and Diversification for 2026

From the Quintana Roo Tourism Promotion Council, director Andrés Martínez Reynoso acknowledged that the Canadian boom demands a corresponding strategy. He revealed that this year they will double promotion efforts in Canada and seek to increase flight frequency to the 19 Canadian cities already connected with Cancún.

The intention is to solidify visitor flow in the short term while simultaneously pushing diversification toward other markets like Brazil and Peru, whose presence in the top ten declined in 2025.

Despite the Canadian surge, experts warn that Mexico remains overly dependent on North America, with seven out of every ten tourists arriving from the United States and Canada. The absence of South American and European countries in the ranking reflects the need to broaden horizons and design more aggressive promotion policies.

For now, Canada’s overtaking of the United States in the air route ranking provides a breath of fresh air for a sector seeking to recover and reinvent itself after years of turbulence.