Introduction to Mexican Aviation

Flying around Mexico is an interesting experience. I’ve flown in a lot of countries, but never anything quite like this. The attitudes of the companies are a little odd to say the least. Add on to that the interesting airport facilities and you’ve got a mini adventure before you even touch the ground!

The first thing that struck me is the check in process. I’ve become very used to the ultra efficient zero hassle Asian airports. In places likes Singapore, the check in process takes about five minutes. You generally walk straight to the counter, hand over your ticket and you’re on your way. Not in Mexico. Every time I checked in, it took AGES to get served. The queues were enormous and slow moving. It’s a very challenging process.

On top of the stupendously long queues, is the manual bag searches. Whenever you check in, before you get to the counter, you have to present your bag to a person who then opens it and goes through all your stuff! They’re obviously checking for dangerous items, but I think they were all getting a perverse thrill at sorting through your knickers!

At one check in, the dude checked all my aerosols. He took objection to my insect spray and confiscated it! Never mind that it had been inspected twice before and had been travelling around the world with me for years, he thought it was a bit suspect! I tried to ask him what the problem was, but he was not interested. I suspect he thought it was fancy aftershave.

The next adventure is actually getting on the plane. Most places, they have walkways onto the plane. Nice and normal. In Mexico City though, they have these weird buses. The buses are on hydraulic lifts. It looks like a bus, but as it approaches the terminal, it lifts up so that the front door opens onto the terminal. The downside, is that each flight is assigned one bus. This means everyone is jammed into the bus until the very last person turns up. This is a whole lot of waiting around doing nothing, followed by a very uncomfortable jammed trip to the plane. Nasty!

Mexico City airport was a bit mental. As we drove to the plane, there were hundreds of little cars, trucks and utes zooming around in every direction. There was no traffic control or traffic lights, so I’m amazed that there aren’t accidents all over the place. Crazy!

The final feature of Mexican airlines is punctuality, or lack of. Every flight I was on was late by at least half an hour. It seemed to be the way things work. Never board on time, never leave on time! Very annoying.

In truth, my response to the Mexican airports is probably a reflection of how good things are in Asia, rather than how bad things are in Mexico. After you become used to the efficiency of airports in Singapore and Hong Kong, everything else seems positively backwards!