Grupo Aeroméxico is planning to list shares in the United States either in the second half of this year or early next year, CEO Andrés Conesa told reporters at a tourism conference on March 27, according to Forbes Mexico and Reuters.

The Aeroméxico (AM, México City International) parent has only just delisted its shares from the Mexican Stock Exchange (Bolsa Mexicana de Valores), its shareholders having decided to do this in June 2022 and it being given the go-ahead by Mexico’s banking and securities regulator (Comision Nacional Bancaria y de Valores - CNBV) in October to trigger a cash tender offer of its capital stock. The delist followed the end of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

Listing in New York “gives you access to financing that’s fundamental for a company, particularly an airline,” Conesa was quoted as saying. “It’s best to have as many lines of financing as possible.”

Aeroméxico has yet to decide whether it will list on the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq, he said, adding: “Our plan is to return as soon as the markets allow, it could be in the second half of this year, it could be in 2024.”

A return to the stock exchange, whichever it will be, is linked to an ongoing USD5 billion investment needed to renew the Aeroméxico fleet. Conesa stressed that the airline will end 2023 with more than 150 aircraft, giving it the biggest fleet in its history, including 20 long-range B787s and, making up around a third of the fleet, Boeing MAX jets.

According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Aeroméxico and its regional unit Aeroméxico Connect (5D, Monterrey Mariano Escobedo) already operate 150 aircraft. These include eleven B787-9s with three more to be delivered, eight B787-8s, fifteen B737-9s with nine more to be delivered, and thirty-three B737-8s.

However, “none of these planes can fly to the United States,” the chief executive said, because in May 2021 the US Federal Aviation Administration downgraded Mexico to its Category 2 rating due to perceived safety concerns, meaning Mexican carriers cannot open new routes to the United States. Conesa said he hoped the downgrading would be corrected “soon” but did not elaborate.

In the meantime, on March 25 Aeroméxico launched a new service from México City International to Rome Fiumicino and resumed flights to Tokyo Narita as it ramps up international flights.

“Europe is very hot right now,” its airport affairs director Abelardo Muñoz Martín said during the Routes Americas 2023 conference in Chicago last week. “So many Mexicans want to get to Europe, and so many Europeans want to come to Mexico.”