SAN-HNL vs TIJ-CUN (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose: renting, how much, hotel)

[PacoMartin]

SAN-HNL vs TIJ-CUN from the perspective of the airline


Hawaiian Airlines schedule to HNL
SAN -> HNL 9:05am ->1:30pm (6:25) layover in HNL for 0:40
HNL -> SAN 2:10pm -> 9:25pm (5:15)

From the passenger's perspective he gets up early in the morning, make it to his hotel by 3 PM check out time, and on the day he leaves he checks out of his hotel at 12:00 and has two hours to get to the airport before takeoff.
From the airline's perspective the plane is flying 11:40 per 24 hour day, and it has a 11:40 layover in San Diego.

Despite the cost of the jet, Hawaiian Airlines lets the jet sit still more than it flies. Now that is acceptable jet use in the USA because it is what passengers want.

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In Mexico that kind of schedule completely unacceptable to an airline which badly needs to get more flight time out of the expensive jet.

Volaris schedule (on some days | not daily )
TIJ->CUN 6:00 AM -> 12:33 PM (4:33) layover in CUN for 8:17
CUN->TIJ 8:50 PM -> 11:33 PM (4:43) layover in TIJ for 6:27

This is much better for the airline because now the layovers are long enough to do a short trip. For example in the 8 hours in Cancun the jet can easily do a round trip to Tuxtla Gutiérrez (507 miles each way) and in Tijuana the jet has 6 hours to do a round trip to Hermosillo (425 miles each way). So the jet does one round trip to Cancun and two smaller round trips. I don't actually know how Volaris schedules the jets, as they could easily go to more distant destinations.

But while it may be more efficient for the airline as far as jet usage, the boarding times are much worse for the passenger.

Compared to being at San Diego airport for a 9 AM takeoff to HNL, the passenger must be at Tijuana airport for a 6 AM takeoff. On the return the passenger has to make arrangements from 11AM checkout to 8:50PM takeoff.

If Volaris were trying to match schedules for the convenience of the passengers, they might do the following hypothetical schedule
TIJ->CUN 8:00 AM -> 2:33 PM (4:33) layover in CUN for 1:17
CUN->TIJ 3:50 PM -> 6:33 PM (4:43) layover in TIJ for 13:27

It would give passengers 2 extra hours in the morning to get to Tijuana airport, and reduce the time from checkout to takeoff so that the passenger can fill the time with a long lunch rather than trying to kill 10 hours without a bed or shower. But it would be harder to schedule a round trip during the off-time.

It's sort of a shame because the round trip to Cancun involves 9:16 total flying time while the round trip to Honolulu involves 11:40 total flying time, but because of the scheduled times, the trip to Cancun is more stressful.

[Pershing2016]

Plus, you have to allow extra time for the border crossing going to/from TIJ. The early afternoon HNL arrival is perfect in that it allows a stop at Costco before it closes and then you don't arrive at the hotel before 3:00 & have to wait for your room to be ready.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by Pershing2016

Plus, you have to allow extra time for the border crossing going to/from TIJ.

Well the Time Zones are in your favor going to Hawaii. If you leave at 9AM San Diego time, it is 7AM Honolulu time, but the Time Zones work against you going to Cancun from Tijuana. If you leave at 6AM Tijuana time, it is 8AM at Cancun.

As you pointed out you have to do the border crossing. I think most of the Mexican Americans simply cross into Mexico through San Ysidro or Otay Mesa and take a taxi to the airport. It saves them the $48 for three people to cross the CBX bridge. On the return trip they cross the CBX and pay the money because it is much easier to get through US customs. I know that the Mexico to USA crossing of the cross-border express is 28% higher than the USA to Mexico crossing.

But gringos who want to go to Cancun may have never been to the Tijuana airport before and they are nervous about how much time to allocate. If you have a flight that takes off at 6 AM it adds to their anxiety. It might be easier to go overnight via Mexico City, but then you show up at Cancun hours before check in.

The Cross Border Express seems to be a huge success with upwards to 30,900 passengers per week crossing into the USA in the first 6 months of 2019, but I am afraid they are not doing as much as they could to entice gringos to use the airport.

Volaris has flights to all these beach destinations from Tijuana
Mile CODE State Full Name
564 LTO BCS Loreto
708 LAP BCS La Paz
784 SJD BCS Los Cabos (San José del Cabo)
919 MZT SIN Mazatlán
1090 PVR JAL Puerto Vallarta
1412 ZIH GRO Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo
1530 ACA GRO Acapulco
1584 VER VER Veracruz
1737 HUX OAX Huatulco (Santa Cruz)
2012 CUN ROO Cancún

SAN airport only flies to two locations in Mexico
SJD Los Cabos (San José del Cabo)
PVR Puerto Vallarta

Originally Posted by Pershing2016

The early afternoon HNL arrival is perfect in that it allows a stop at Costco before it closes and then you don't arrive at the hotel before 3:00 & have to wait for your room to be ready.

Well you get in an hour earlier into Cancun, but I think more people are inhibited about renting a car and driving to the Costco (10.4 miles from airport).

COSTCO Av. Kabah esq, Av Yaxchilán 24, 21, 77505 Cancún, Q.R., Mexico

The Costco is 4.4 miles from Honolulu Airport, but it is on the way to Waikiki.

[malcorub16]

UBER and Taxis in Tijuana makes getting to get the airport for those who are accustomed to getting around in TJ (mostly US Hispanics but others as well). It does make sense to save yourself some money when there are more than three people traveling to use the regular land border as opposed to Cross Border express. Coming back, it depends on the day and time of day on whether I would use CBX or not, usually I will just foot the bill to save myself the hassle.

What are the flights from San Diego (SAN) into Mexico?

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by malcorub16

What are the flights from San Diego (SAN) into Mexico?

San Diego only has flights to the two nearest and most popular Mexican beach towns.
SJD 802 miles Los Cabos
PVR 1109 miles Puerto Vallarta

The CBX has meant that there are no longer flights from San Diego Airport to the two largest Mexican Airports, Mexico City and Guadalajara. There is simply more choices as to flight times by crossing into Tijuana.

As Cancun is roughly 600 miles closer to San Diego than Honolulu, a hypothetical flight from San Diego Airport to Cancun has been discussed for years. Either destination can be served by a narrow body.

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION on Honolulu Domestic flights
There are flights to Honolulu on wide-bodies from Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, JFK, Boston, Atlanta, and on weekends Washington DC. The bigger airports like LAX, SFO, and Las Vegas fly mostly wide-bodies to Honolulu, but narrow bodies to other islands. There are flights on narrow bodies from Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Long Beach, Portland, Seattle, and San Diego.
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There is now nonstops from roughly 40 Airports in the USA to Cancun.

The bottom line is that of airports that have both nonstops to Cancun and Hawaii are pretty big airports if they over 1700 miles from Cancun. You don't see Cancun service to Sacramento, San Jose, Oakland, Portland OR, etc.

The only counter argument is SLC (Salt Lake City) whose airport is almost same size as SAN. But SLC is not served by Hawaiian Airlines, Alaska or Southwest to Hawaii. It only has Delta to Honolulu. So it is an opportunity to give people Cancun as an alternative for beach vacations.


USA airports - Miles to Cancun

1. SEA 2685 Seattle (rank #8)
2. SFO 2407 San Francisco (rank #7)
3. LAX 2119 Los Angeles (rank #2)
4. SAN 2028 San Diego (rank #24) ----------- hypothetical
5. SLC 2005 Salt Lake City (rank #23)
6. LAS 1996 Las Vegas (rank #9)
7. PHX 1760 Phoenix (rank #13)
8. BOS 1735 Boston (rank #16)
9. MSP 1683 Minneapolis (rank #17)
10. DEN 1669 Denver (rank #5)
11. BDL 1661 Hartford/Springfield (Windsor Locks) ---- medium size airport
12. JFK 1555 New York
13. EWR 1547 Newark
14. MKE 1511 Milwaukee
15. DTW 1473 Detroit (Romulus)
16. PHL 1469 Philadelphia
17. ORD 1444 Chicago
18. CLE 1434 Cleveland
19. MDW 1431 Chicago
20. PIT 1396 Pittsburgh
21. BWI 1389 Baltimore
22. IAD 1355 Washington
23. MCI 1341 Kansas City
24. CMH 1327 Columbus
25. IND 1287 Indianapolis
26. CVG 1248 Covington
27. STL 1238 St. Louis
28. RDU 1133 Raleigh/Durham
29. BNA 1039 Nashville
30. DFW 1028 Dallas-Fort Worth
31. SAT 931 San Antonio
32. AUS 922 Austin
33. ATL 880 Atlanta
34. IAH 811 Houston
35. HOU 791 Houston
36. MSY 652 New Orléans
37. MCO 617 Orlando
38. FLL 550 Fort Lauderdale
39. TPA 550 Tampa
40. MIA 513 Miami

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Let's suppose you want to go from Tijuana to one of the Pacific Beach destinations which are closer than Cancun
ZIH 1412 miles Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo [Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo Intl]
ACA 1530 miles Acapulco [General Juan N. Álvarez Intl]

But once again you are looking at the nonstop flights at hours that have nothing to do with hotel check-in/out times
Operated by Volaris Mexico Aircraft type: A320

1:30 AM - 7:04 AM Duration: 3h 34m Tijuana -> Acapulco
7:34 AM - 9:10 AM Duration: 3h 36m Acapulco-> Tijuana

3:04 AM - 8:27 AM Duration: 3h 23m Tijuana -> Ixtapa / Zihuatanejo
8:57 AM - 10:33 AM Duration: 3h 36m Ixtapa / Zihuatanejo -> Tijuana

Americans are not used to 3.5 hour redeyes that only cross two time zone. The more normal redeye flight for Americans is 5-6 hours and crossing 3 time zones.

[PacoMartin]

I guess a simpler way to phrase it is that Cancun has a nonstop to 25 out of 30 of the large airports in the USA. The only ones missing are:
HNL - obviously very little demand to go between beach resort cities
DCA & LGA - no international flights to these urban airports
PDX & SAN - Portland and San Diego

Since Portland is actually closer to Honolulu, there is not as much demand for Cancun flights

SAN - San Diego is the last major airport. Demand is being met by flying via another USA hub, or by flying from Tijuana Airport.

Flights from Tijuana are at such wierd times that they are more suitable for people who work at the resorts instead of people going to them.

[Pershing2016]

I flew SAN-CUN on Southwest a few years ago with a change of planes in Houston, but it was not the big Houston airport. In fact, it seemed to be pretty much only Southwest there. So that was not a bad experience changing planes there.

[sdurbanite]

Originally Posted by PacoMartin

I guess a simpler way to phrase it is that Cancun has a nonstop to 25 out of 30 of the large airports in the USA. The only ones missing are:
HNL - obviously very little demand to go between beach resort cities
DCA & LGA - no international flights to these urban airports
PDX & SAN - Portland and San Diego

Since Portland is actually closer to Honolulu, there is not as much demand for Cancun flights

SAN - San Diego is the last major airport. Demand is being met by flying via another USA hub, or by flying from Tijuana Airport.

Flights from Tijuana are at such wierd times that they are more suitable for people who work at the resorts instead of people going to them.

Didn't know Cancun was had so many direct flights from that many US airports. Wonder if/when we will ever get service. I was bummed when they cancelled the nonstop to Mexico City, but then again, the CBX is an option. What a great city that is to visit.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by sdurbanite

Didn't know Cancun was had so many direct flights from that many US airports. Wonder if/when we will ever get service.

Cancun got started with a lot of charter flights, but they have evolved over the last 40 years.

In addition to 25 out of 30 of the LARGE airports with nonstops to Cancun, they also fly to 15 out of 30 MEDIUM airports. San Diego is a LARGE airport by FAA definition because it carries more than 1% of the nation's passenger boardings.

It is impossible for 2 of the LARGE airports to have flights to Cancun as LGA and DCA have no international flights. HNL has no market to want to fly to Cancun. So that leaves only Portland and San Diego.

The MEDIUM airports in the Western USA do not fly nonstop to Cancun. That includes Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Long Beach, Albuquerque. They just fly from CT.

Honolulu only has nonstops to four MEDIUM airports (Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Long Beach). All the other nonstop destinations are classified as one of the 30 LARGE ones. The ones missing are HNL itself, DCA and LGA because of flight restrictions, and the four LARGE airports in Florida (MIA, FLL, TPA, MCO).

Originally Posted by sdurbanite

I was bummed when they cancelled the nonstop to Mexico City, but then again, the CBX is an option. What a great city that is to visit.

Mexico City has a much worse reputation than it deserves.

[sdurbanite]

Originally Posted by PacoMartin

Mexico City has a much worse reputation than it deserves.

Agreed. It almost makes NYC feel sleepy with some of its late night neighborhoods..Polanco, Zona Rosa, Condesa, Roma, among others