When did the Concorde arrive in Mexico?

Air France opened the route on 20 September 1978, flying Paris-Charles de Gaulle – Washington-Dulles – Mexico City. The Concorde could not cover the 9,200 km between Paris and Mexico without refuelling: its supersonic cruise range was around 6,500 km, so the Washington stopover, which Air France had served since 1976, acted as a bridge. The Washington–Mexico leg took just under three hours, and the whole journey came in under eight, against the eleven or twelve of a subsonic jet.

In the late 1970s Mexico was riding the oil boom and had a business and government clientele willing to pay the supersonic fare; for Air France, it was also a way to put to use a fleet of seven aircraft with few profitable routes. Occupancy, however, was low from the start. The segment over the United States had to be flown at subsonic speed, which took away the aircraft's advantage, and the peso devaluation and the 1982 debt crisis crushed demand. Air France suspended the service on 1 November 1982, just over four years after launching it.

Benito Juárez Airport sits at 2,230 m (7,316 ft) of altitude. The thinner air lengthened the takeoff run and limited the maximum weight, so the Concorde left Mexico carrying less fuel than it would have loaded at sea level. After the scheduled route closed, the aircraft returned to Mexico on sporadic charter flights during the 1980s and 1990s. The programme ended in 2003: Air France's last commercial flight was on 31 May and British Airways' on 24 October.