VivaAerobus starts 2016 with positive momentum. Profitable growth is the key to its future

Mexican low cost airline VivaAerobus ended 2015 on a positive note, reversing its losses from the year prior and charting solid EBIDTAR margins. The airline is in the final stretch of a fleet revamp; this entails shedding Boeing 737 Classics operated since its 2006 launch and transitioning to a much younger fleet of Airbus narrowbodies.

Among the new crop of Mexican low cost airlines that formed in the mid-2000s (VivaAerobus, Interjet and Volaris), VivaAerobus remains the smallest measured by market share. Aeromexico, Interjet, Volaris and VivaAerobus are Mexico's dominant airlines, but VivaAerobus' 12% in 2015 share was a distant fourth. That could change as VivaAerobus expands its fleet with larger-gauge aircraft, taking steps to broaden the expanse of its network.

VivaAerobus suspended a number of short-lived transborder routes in 2015, and it appears to be focused on rounding out its domestic network in 2016, before resuming international expansion in 2017. During the next few years VivaAerobus could elevate its position in the Mexican market if there is enough demand to sustain the growth plans of the country's largest airlines.