Another low-cost airline files for bankruptcy protection

With the price of jet fuel continuing to sit at highs unseen in years, almost every airline has canceled routes to prioritize only the most profitable ones.

In some cases, the cancellations were so extensive that the airline also had to temporarily or permanently shut down.

In mid-April, Mexican vacation airline Magnicharters abruptly canceled all of its flights for two weeks in a situation that required the Mexican government and several competing airlines to step in to help thousands of travelers left stranded.

Mexican holiday airline Magnicharters files for bankruptcy protection

With the initially announced restart date at the start of May passing without a resumption of service, Magnicharters has now voluntarily filed for bankruptcy protection.

Based out of Monterrey in northern Mexico, Magnicharters filed for the U.S. equivalent of either Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 protection in the First District Court for Bankruptcy Proceedings in Mexico City. It is not immediately clear whether the airline is seeking court permission to reorganize its finances to continue operating or is looking to liquidate over inability to do so.

At the time it first canceled all flights last month, the carrier blamed “operational problems” for what was supposed to be a temporary shutdown.

Magnicharters eventually had its AOC license temporarily stripped by Mexican regulators on April 14 over a lack of financial resources severe enough to “represent a risk to operational safety.”

What happened to Magnicharters: Will we see it again?

“If financial resources are insufficient, maintenance, training, spare parts, and technical support are compromised [which then] rais[es] concerns about operational safety,” Mexico’s National Institute of Legal-Aeronautical Research Director Pablo Casas said of the situation at the time to local newspapers, in translation from Spanish.

The website and social media pages for Magnicharters are currently not being kept active, while airport counters in several Mexican airports are also reported to have no staff attending to them.

The airline has not officially commented on the bankruptcy filing or whether it intends to restart operations, but the latter looks increasingly unlikely.

At the time of the flight cancellations, Mexican airlines, including Aeromexico and Volaris, were tapped by Mexico’s aviation authority to run several evacuation flights from popular vacation destinations such as Cancún and the Yucatán