Volaris Adds Nonstop Flights From Querétaro to Vegas

Flights start December 4 and run Mondays and Fridays, connecting Harry Reid International on the Vegas end with Querétaro Intercontinental Airport on the other. The outbound flight leaves Querétaro at 2:10 p.m. local time and lands in Vegas at 3:48 p.m. The return leaves Vegas at 5:17 p.m. and gets into Querétaro at 10:30 p.m.

Twice weekly is thin next to the daily service Volaris already runs between Vegas and both Guadalajara and Mexico City. Querétaro becomes the airline's third Mexican destination out of Harry Reid. Volaris has been flying into Vegas since 2010 and has carried more than 3.5 million passengers on those two existing routes.

Querétaro is not a name most Vegas visitors know, but it is one of Mexico's wealthier, faster growing cities. Roughly 1.6 million people live in the city itself, with 3 to 3.5 million more within a 90 mile radius, an area known as the Bajío region. It sits about 135 miles northwest of Mexico City and has built its economy around aerospace, automotive manufacturing, electronics and IT work, industries that tend to pay above the national average. Household incomes there run roughly 30% higher than the rest of Mexico, according to the LVCVA.

That income profile is exactly what an airline and a tourism authority look for before committing to a route. Volaris executive vice president Holger Blankenstein said the new route "makes it easier to travel to reunite with family and friends," pointing to ties between Las Vegas and Mexico that go beyond tourism. LVCVA CEO Steve Hill said it "opens the door for more visitors from the Bajío region." Aviation consultant Joel Van Over called it the first new core Mexico route into Vegas since 2012, a longer gap than it sounds given how much Vegas air service has grown from other countries in that stretch.

This route will not move the needle on Strip crowds by itself. Twice a week, aimed partly at family and business travel, is a modest start. But it fits a pattern Vegas tourism officials have been chasing all year, more direct international access rather than just more hotel rooms. A new route from a wealthy, fast growing Mexican metro is the kind of long game that pays off over years, not the next quarter.

If you have family or business ties to the Bajío region, this is your new most direct option starting in December. For everyone else, it is a small data point in a bigger story. Vegas is still working to grow its air service beyond the usual U.S. domestic markets, and this is one more route on that list.