VivaAeroBus to Fly Soon

VivaAeroBus, a new low-cost Mexican airline that is partly owned by the founders of Ryanair, will begin flying in October. Launching with an initial investment of $50 million, the new airline will connect Mexican airports to several U.S. cities, using two Boeing 737-300 planes. Owned by the Ryan family (49 percent) and Mexican bus company IAMSA (51 percent) and based in Monterrey, Mexico, the airline hopes to have five planes flying by year's end, double its fleet to 10 planes in 2007 and carry a million passengers during its first year of operations. The start-up airline, with a new green and pink logo, will also undercut fares of the traditional Mexican airlines by about 50 percent. The Mexican airline industry has doubled in size in the past two decades. It served only 15 million passengers in 1985 and flies about 30 million today.