Tijuana Airport (TIJ): terminals, flights

Aeropuerto Internacional General Abelardo L. Rodríguez (IATA: TIJ, ICAO: MMTJ) is a primary hub for Tijuana, Mexico. Our catalogue shows 6 departing routes, with the airlines, frequencies and lowest peso (MXN) fares listed below.

Airport facts

TIJ carries 6 routes and 3 airlines in our catalogue, totalling 129 weekly departures. Aeropuerto Internacional General Abelardo L. Rodríguez (ICAO MMTJ) serves Tijuana, Mexico, in the America/Tijuana zone (UTC−7 in July). Its coordinates (32.5411, -116.97) are the basis of every distance on this site.

• IATA: TIJ
• ICAO: MMTJ
• City: Tijuana
• Country: Mexico
• Time zone: America/Tijuana
• Coordinates: 32.5411, -116.97
• Airlines at the airport: 3

What each code is for. The IATA code (TIJ) is what the bag tag and the ticket use; the ICAO code (MMTJ) is what flight plans, NOTAMs and flight trackers use. To follow the inbound aircraft that will become your flight, ICAO is the one that returns reliable results. And if TIJ is not printed on your bag tag, the bag was not checked through to here — worth catching at the counter.

Coordinates, and why we publish them. 32.5411, -116.97 is the position from which every great-circle distance on this site is computed, including the ones that set the EU261 compensation band. It is not the distance the aircraft flies — that follows airways and diversions — but the geodesic measure the regulations use. Publishing it lets anyone recompute the figures on these pages.

Airlines at TIJ

3 catalogued airlines operate routes to or from TIJ: 1 full-service and 2 low-cost, with checked allowance from 0 to 23 kg. Alliances present: oneworld. They cover 6 catalogued routes and 129 weekly departures. The table below lists each operator with its type, alliance and checked allowance.

Carriers in our catalogue operating routes to or from this airport, with type, alliance and economy baggage allowance:

What does apply on departure from Mexico. Mexico’s Ley de Aviación Civil (Art. 47 Bis), enforced by AFAC and PROFECO, covers flights taking off from Mexican territory from TIJ regardless of the airline’s nationality: a delay over 4 hours attributable to the carrier entitles you to at least 25% of the ticket price, and from the first hour the airline owes assistance that escalates with duration. Keep the boarding pass and the purchase receipt — a claim stands on those two documents.

Alliances present at TIJ: oneworld. It matters for two concrete things: where miles credit, and what happens when something breaks. Within one alliance, rebooking onto another member is usually provided for; between carriers with no agreement it does not exist and depends on goodwill at the desk. If you buy two legs on operators from different alliances, treat them as two separate trips.

Routes from Tijuana (TIJ)

Our catalogue lists 6 routes from TIJ, totalling 129 weekly departures and spanning 30 to 1,902 km. The busiest is TIJ-GDL at ~42 flights a week; 1 of them carry a cached fare, spread across 2 audience profiles. Every row in this section comes from that same corridor catalogue, not from a live search.

What traffic TIJ moves. By audience profile, the routes catalogued here split as: Mexico-US paisano corridor (5), Latin American regional corridor (1). That mix explains the airport’s seasonality: family corridors spike in December and Holy Week, leisure ones follow the holiday calendar, and regional ones stay flatter across the year.

Why some rows have no fare. Of the 6 routes listed, 1 returned a price on the collector’s last pass and the rest show a dash. A dash means the automated query got no result for that pair — not that the route is suspended or expensive. For those pairs the reference price comes from the live search, which queries current inventory.

Fare seasonality

1 routes at TIJ carry a monthly minimum-fare breakdown. Between the cheapest and priciest months observed the gap reaches 30% on the widest route, which shows how much the date matters against the choice of airline at this airport.

Lowest detected fare by month on routes with data, in pesos (MXN). The cheapest versus dearest month helps you time the purchase:

The three peaks of the Mexican calendar. December, Holy Week and summer concentrate family and leisure demand at once, and in those windows price stops responding to normal lead time: cheap buckets sell out earlier and flexible fares go at a premium. Outside them, the usual pattern rewards buying 4 to 8 weeks ahead and travelling midweek. That window is a general Mexican-market rule of thumb, not a measurement of this route: our series records observed prices, not the lead time at which each ticket was bought.

What a ‘cheapest month’ means here. It is the minimum the automated query found for that month — not an average and not a guaranteed fare — and it usually corresponds to the least convenient date combination in the month. A month with no row is not an expensive month: it is a month with no data. With that caveat, the month-to-month comparison still holds because every cell was measured the same way.

Connection tips

TIJ concentrates 129 catalogued weekly departures across 3 airlines, in the America/Tijuana zone. That density is what decides how much slack to leave on a connection: the more of its own services the airline runs here, the more same-day rebooking options exist.

Aeropuerto Internacional General Abelardo L. Rodríguez runs on the America/Tijuana time zone; factor the offset from your origin city when planning connections and transfers. The busiest route at TIJ is TIJ-GDL (~42 flights a week). The lowest fare detected at this airport is $2,017 MXN on the TIJ-GDL route. Book 4–8 weeks ahead for the busiest routes to/from Tijuana; fares climb in December, Holy Week and summer. Each route guide above shows month-by-month seasonality and the lowest peso fare. That window is a general Mexican-market rule of thumb, not a measurement of this route: our series records observed prices, not the lead time at which each ticket was bought.

The cheap connection that loses the checked bag. Two separate tickets are not one itinerary: there is no interline agreement, the bag is not checked through to the final destination, and if the first flight lands late the second airline owes you nothing — it sold a different flight. The apparent saving evaporates the moment you buy a same-day replacement. On a single ticket, rebooking and the bag transfer are the carrier’s problem, not yours.

Other airports in Mexico

12 further Mexico airports appear in our catalogue besides TIJ, with 105 routes between them. The best-connected is Ciudad de México (MEX) with 44 routes, and the nearest sits ~998 km great-circle from TIJ. The 12 distances in this section are measured from each airport’s own coordinates.

Other airports in the same country in our catalogue, with the number of catalogued routes — useful if you need an alternative gateway:

Great-circle distance is not the transfer. The figures in the table are geodesic, computed from each airport’s coordinates; the real journey depends on whether road, rail or a domestic flight exists, and on what they cost. An airport 300 km away can be more accessible than one at 120 km if the first has a direct motorway and the second does not. Use them to rule out, not to plan.

FAQ

The 8 questions on this record are answered from catalogue figures for TIJ: routes and weekly frequencies, minimum fares observed by the collector, checked-baggage allowances and the rights regime that applies on each leg. No answer adds data that is not in those sources.

What are the IATA and ICAO codes for Tijuana airport? The IATA code is TIJ and the ICAO code is MMTJ. Aeropuerto Internacional General Abelardo L. Rodríguez serves Tijuana, Mexico.

Which airlines operate at TIJ? Airlines on our catalogued routes at TIJ: VivaAerobus, Volaris, Alaska Airlines.

How many routes are there from Tijuana (TIJ)? Our catalogue lists 6 departing routes at TIJ — see the tables above.

What time zone is TIJ in? TIJ operates in the America/Tijuana time zone.

How many weekly departures does TIJ have in this catalogue? Across the catalogued routes touching TIJ we count 129 weekly departures over 3 airlines and 6 routes. That is the coverage relevant to Mexican travellers, not the airport’s full directory.

What is the longest catalogued route at TIJ? Catalogued routes at TIJ span 30 to 1,902 km great-circle, computed from each airport’s coordinates. That distance drives aircraft type and the applicable compensation band on European sectors.

What is the lowest fare detected at TIJ? $2,017 MXN on TIJ-GDL, per the collector’s last pass across 1 routes with data at this airport. It is an observed one-way minimum, not a guaranteed price or a bookable offer.

Which airlines are based at TIJ? Volaris, VivaAerobus run TIJ as a base. An airline based here keeps aircraft and crews overnight, so it has more of its own services to rebook a disrupted passenger onto the same day.

Related

• TIJ-GDL flights
• Mexico airports

Published by FlightsMX Editorial Team. Last verified: May 2026.