Magnicharters

Anyone looking for old Boeing 737s in Mexico sooner or later ended up at Magnicharters. The small leisure airline from Mexico City flew package tourists to the beaches of Cancún, Huatulco and Puerto Vallarta – and did so for decades with aircraft that other airlines had long since retired. The grounding came in April 2026, the final loss of the operating certificate in June 2026. This page shows you what is behind Magnicharters, which types it flew and how to reliably recognize its aircraft in old and new photos.

Magnicharters at a glance

Magnicharters is a Mexican leisure airline based in Mexico City. Officially the company is called Grupo Aéreo Monterrey S.A. de C.V. – which is where the ICAO code GMT and the callsign come from. Its roots lie in tourism: in 1984 the Bojórquez brothers founded the tour operator Magnitur. So as not to have to bring their customers to the beaches on other companies’ aircraft for good, the family built its own airline in 1994. Flight operations began in early 1995; the first route is said to have been Mexico City–Cancún.

At first Magnicharters was only allowed to operate charter and cargo flights. From 2000, regular commercial flights were added. That changed little about the profile: the airline remained a leisure carrier that sold a large share of its seats through package tours with a hotel. If you want to know how the two models differ, the article Charter flights and scheduled flights helps.

The airline belonged to no alliance and did not work with a large network of connecting flights. Its bases were in Mexico City and Monterrey; at times it also flew a lot from Guadalajara. From there it almost always went to the coast. That made Magnicharters a typical representative of a niche that survived for a long time alongside the network carrier Aeroméxico and the low-cost carriers Volaris and Viva Aerobus.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code UJ: appeared in the flight number, so on tickets, booking confirmations and departure boards.
• ICAO code GMT: appeared in the air traffic control flight plan and on flight trackers. It stands for Grupo Aéreo Monterrey.
• Callsign GRUPOMONTERREY: this is how the crews identified themselves on the radio.

How the two code systems relate is explained in the article IATA and ICAO codes; you can find more about the origin of radio callsigns under Airline callsigns and their history.

The ICAO code likes to cause confusion. Here GMT has nothing to do with Greenwich Mean Time – it is simply the abbreviation of the operating company. When you go through old tracker logs or screenshots, make sure that filters and search functions don’t accidentally return timestamps instead of flights.

Status 2026: grounding and AOC revocation

On April 11, 2026 Magnicharters announced through its own channels that it was suspending flight operations with immediate effect. The airline cited logistics and financial problems as well as upcoming maintenance work. At first a pause of about two weeks was mentioned. For many vacationers it came at the worst possible time: at the end of the Easter holidays, when numerous guests on the beaches were waiting for their return flights.

The state government of Quintana Roo, the state where Cancún is located, together with the federal government organized free replacement seats on Viva Aerobus flights. The consumer protection agency Profeco and the transport ministry also helped rebook stranded passengers onto free seats on other airlines.

The Mexican aviation authority AFAC provisionally suspended the airline’s operating certificate (AOC) on April 14, 2026. According to press reports, the authority had already found deficiencies during an extraordinary inspection in January 2026. After the grounding the AFAC demanded evidence that the airline was fixing its problems. The documents submitted were not sufficient: on June 29, 2026 the AFAC permanently revoked the AOC, and the decision became public in early July.

Mexico has lost several well-known airlines in recent years. Mexicana de Aviación ceased operations in 2010, Interjet landed for the last time in December 2020, and the regional airline Aeromar gave up in 2023. In 2026 Magnicharters joins this list – albeit as a smaller company that was heavily specialized in the vacation market.

The fleet: three generations of old Boeings

The fleet is what made Magnicharters known among spotters. Throughout its history the airline flew Boeing jets, and almost always types that were already disappearing from passenger service elsewhere. The following overview summarizes the types documented in the fleet:

Type	Period	Generation	Spotter note
Boeing 727-100	1993–2000, leased seasonally	Trijet	Briefly in service, today an extremely rare subject
Boeing 737-100	around 1996	737 Original	Only a few examples, shortest 737
Boeing 737-200	1995–2018	737 Original	For a long time the backbone of the fleet
Boeing 737-500	2014–2019	737 Classic	One-off
Boeing 737-300	until 2026	737 Classic	Finally the only type, about 30 years old on average

How large the fleet was at the end cannot be said exactly. The figures vary by source: fleet databases list only three serviceable 737-300s for April 2026, other accounts five aircraft of this type, and the press spoke of twelve Boeing 737s in total. What is certain: they were older 737s of the Classic generation, and only some of them were actually in the air at the end. In 2004 the fleet comprised ten aircraft.

The Boeing 737-200 shaped the airline’s image for two decades. It only disappeared from the fleet in 2018 – at a time when only a few airlines worldwide still carried passengers on this type. After that the Boeing 737-300 took over alone. In between, a 737-500, a few 737-100s and leased 727-100s turned up. The manufacturer of all types is Boeing.

737-200 or 737-300? How to tell them apart

In photos from the 2000s and 2010s, both generations often stand side by side at Magnicharters. The paint scheme hardly helps you here, but the technology does all the more.

The most important feature is the engine inlet. On the Classic generation Boeing had to fit the larger engines under the 737’s low wing – that is why the nacelle is flattened at the bottom, the typical “hamster cheek.” The 737-200, by contrast, has narrow, cigar-shaped engines. If you want to compare all the generations in detail, read Telling the Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX apart.

Between the 737-300 and the 737-500 it is harder: both belong to the Classic generation and have similar engines. The 737-500, however, is clearly shorter. It is best to count the windows between the forward door and the wing or compare the proportions of fuselage and tail. When in doubt, the registration settles the matter.

How to recognize Magnicharters

The most reliable feature is the combination of an older Boeing 737 and a Mexican registration with XA-. In Mexico, commercially operated aircraft carry the prefix XA-, private aircraft XB- and state aircraft XC-. You can find more on how registrations work in the guide to aircraft registrations.

The fuselage carries the “Magnicharters” titles. Because the fleet was so small, the individual aircraft are well documented – with unclear pictures it is worth checking the registration against photo databases.

The lucha libre aircraft

A highlight for collectors came in July 2017: for the 25th anniversary of the wrestling promotion Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide, two aircraft received special liveries with the masks of the wrestlers Dr. Wagner Jr. and Psycho Clown – matching their mask match at Triplemanía XXV in August 2017. Designs like these are typical of Mexico and are among the most striking liveries ever seen on a 737 Classic. How to find and document such paint schemes systematically is shown in the article Collecting special liveries.

Routes and destinations

Magnicharters flew mainly to where Mexicans go on vacation. Destinations included:

• Caribbean coast: Cancún with the Riviera Maya and Cozumel
• Pacific coast: Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán, Manzanillo, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Acapulco, Huatulco, Puerto Escondido and San José del Cabo
• Cities inland: Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mérida, León, Querétaro, Puebla, Chihuahua and others
• International, at times: Havana and Varadero in Cuba, Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, and Las Vegas, Orlando and Dallas in the USA

In 2014 the airline invested in a larger fleet and opened routes from Monterrey to Las Vegas and Orlando. For spotters in the USA this was one of the rare chances to get a Mexican 737-200 or 737-300 in front of the lens. Shortly before the 2026 grounding, Cancún, Mérida, Huatulco, Puerto Escondido and Puerto Vallarta were among the most important destinations.

The most important airport for the airline was Mexico City Airport. There the old 737s stood among the modern jets of Aeroméxico, Volaris and Viva Aerobus – a contrast that has shaped many spotter photos.

Incidents and trouble with the authorities

Magnicharters had several incidents in its history in which nobody was killed. They do show, however, how demanding it is to operate very old aircraft:

In addition, in December 2014 there was trouble with the consumer protection agency Profeco, which temporarily stopped sales because the airline had not published its prices properly.

Spotting Magnicharters – today mostly in the archive

Because Magnicharters has not flown since April 2026, the airline is mainly a matter for your collection. If you traveled in Mexico in the past, you may have a Magnicharters 737-200 or 737-300 on your memory card. Now is the right time to sort those pictures properly – the article Archiving aircraft photos gives tips.

When editing your photos, the registration helps you most. With it you find the year of manufacture, earlier operators and the current whereabouts of an aircraft. How to find out the age of an aircraft is explained in How old is this aircraft?. And if you want to know how special your shot is, read Spotting rare aircraft.

Looking ahead: if a former Magnicharters 737 does take off again – for example on a ferry flight to a new owner – that would be a special moment. How to catch such one-off flights in time is shown in the guide Spotting farewell and first flights.

Common mix-ups

• Mistaking GMT for a time – on trackers it is the ICAO code of Grupo Aéreo Monterrey.
• Equating Magnicharters with Magnitur – Magnitur is the tour operator, Magnicharters the airline.
• Swapping the 737-300 and 737-500 – both are Classic 737s, but the 737-500 is clearly shorter.
• Assuming every old 737 with XA- is Magnicharters – other Mexican operators also flew older 737s; the registration decides.
• Noting the operation as active for 2026 – the airline has not flown since April 11, 2026, and has lacked its AOC since the end of June 2026.

Conclusion

Magnicharters was a piece of old aviation in the middle of the modern Mexican market: a family airline that flew vacationers to the beaches and relied on the 737-200 until 2018 and then on the 737-300. The grounding in April 2026 and the AOC revocation in June ended this era. For spotters the photos remain – and they are worth it if you document registration, type and date carefully.