VIA's José Mulet looks back on 33 years in the aviation industry

HARLINGEN, Texas - Any idea what the busiest domestic airline route is in North America?LA to New York? No. That is the second busiest. Chicago to New York? No. San Francisco to Los Angeles? No. It is, in fact, Cancun to Mexico City. The third busiest is Mexico City to Monterrey. The Rio Grande Guardian learned these facts when interviewing José Mulet, director of air service, business development, and public relations for Valley International Airport (VIA) in Harlingen. Mulet appears to have an encyclopedic knowledge of airline routes and how popular they are. The busiest domestic airline route in the world, he said, is Jeju to Seoul. Another busy domestic route is Beijing to Shanghai. So are Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh, and Melbourne to Sydney. Mulet said there are ten Airbus 380 flights a day between London Heathrow and, Dubai. Rio Grande Valley residents may not be able to pick Mulet’s brain on airline routes for much longer, however. After 33 years in the aviation industry the airport executive is slated to retire at the end of February, 2022. Likely as not we will then find him on a cruise. There are many places he wants to visit. He plans to do a two-week cruise from Santiago to Buenos Aires and visit New Zealand to see the fjords.A former high school teacher, Mulet started out in the airline industry in 1978 just as deregulation was getting underway. “Airlines could fly anywhere they wanted,” he recalled. “So, there was a boom in the airline industry.”Editor's Note: For the full story go to the Rio Grande Guardian website. Go to www.riograndeguardian.com to read the latest border news stories and watch the latest news videos.