Volaris Airlines

Oh and as a follow-up.............the night before my flight the phone started ringing at about 11:00pm. Every time I answered it there was someone speaking Spanish and I couldn't understand what they were saying. This happened about 4 times in a row. On the 5th call, about 20 minutes later, it was an English speaking guy. he said he was from Volaris and wanted to ensure I knew about the schedule change. I told him I knew about the change 2 months earlier by looking on their website. He said that is good and offered to pre-check me in and assign my seat right there and then. I told him it was 11:20pm and that I was sleeping and not interested in doing all this right now. GO FIGURE!!!!!

On a somewhat related note, my sister arrived here on Sunday at about 5:30 and 10 minutes later received an email telling her that the flight which she had just arrived on would be delayed in Houston by 30 minutes.
Timely...not.    

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Notice there is NO year posted?   

CheenaGringo wrote:" />

Since it just came today, I am assuming it is 2014. But this allows them to change it whenever they want!

zenwoodle wrote:On a somewhat related note, my sister arrived here on Sunday at about 5:30 and 10 minutes later received an email telling her that the flight which she had just arrived on would be delayed in Houston by 30 minutes.
Timely...not.    

Does Volaris fly from Houston to Guadalajara?

No. Just San Antonio, so someone was confused.

No, this incident occurred with United. Hence the "somewhat related" statement 

We just completed flying R/T San Antonio - Guadalajara on Volaris.  While we didn't get caught in any sudden change in schedules, we certainly noticed the negative changes that have been made to this airline since first flying it in 2011!  It is quite obvious that they are following the examples set by so many airlines these days and none of them are positive changes.  Whereas their former baggage policy was fairly consumer friendly, their baggage policies seem to be in a constant state of flux designed to increase revenues.  At the present, they do allow ONE checked bag weighing 25kg or 55lbs but be very careful of their policy regarding two personal carry on items that cannot exceed 41" total size each and no more than 7kg/15.4lb for the two items!  We saw numerous people getting caught by the size or weight restrictions and having to pay extra.  Since we knew we would be purchasing new treasures in Mexico, we purchased an extra bag returning at time of booking which is the lowest rate.  When I purchased this extra bag, you were allowed 33lb but just prior to the trip, it was changed to 55lb at no additional cost.  When booking, they have an ala carte menu with charges for seat selection, insurance and a number of other items.  As for the seat selection charge, you can play the waiting game until you check in and avoid the extra charges but your seat selection will be limited to what is available at the time.  Once on the plane, they charge for every type of drink and all snacks.  The flight attendants use to work the cabin constantly throughout the flight and now essentially make one trip with the snack/drink cart and then forget that they have passengers.  

The above comments relate to International flights.

The good news for Canadian travellers is that one of the topics at the "Three Amigo's" summit meeting is to open Canadian Skies to more Mexican Airlines and reduce/eliminate the visa requirements for Mexicans travelling to Canada. Hopefully this will mean some direct flights from major Canadian cities to Guadalajara.

Based upon current airline policies, I would hope for Interjet or even AeroMexico.

CanuckBob wrote:The good news for Canadian travellers is that one of the topics at the "Three Amigo's" summit meeting is to open Canadian Skies to more Mexican Airlines and reduce/eliminate the visa requirements for Mexicans travelling to Canada. Hopefully this will mean some direct flights from major Canadian cities to Guadalajara.

A couple of years ago a WestJet guy told me they were likely to introduce a direct Calgary to Guadalajara flight but, obviously, it never happened and I often wondered if they chose not to do so or if some regulatory issue prevented it.

I think there may have been some bad blood between the Canadian/Mexican air travel regulators since Canada imposed those visa requirements for Mexican travellers.

Fingers crossed

Some hilarious conversation on TOB about Volaris:\
http://www.chapala.com/webboard/index.php?showtopic=49145
Some of the experiences expressed certainly weren't ours when flying down on Feb 8th and back up on Feb 18th.  Like so many things in Mexico, it seems to vary from one airport crew to another. One poster even went so far as to suggest that carry on baggage enforcement was a racial thing.  I can honestly say that that most of those busted for too large of carry on bags and extra charges were Mexicans. We certainly didn't experience the window seat boarding first and middle seat boarding second idea since our flights boarded from front to back and we both had aisle seats across from each other. Yes, we did pay to pick our seats when booking rather than wait to see what was available for free at check in time.

A friend sent me the solution to all these airline problems this morning.

Take heart!

HOW TO
SAVE THE AIRLINES
Dump the
male flight attendants. No one wanted them in
the first place....

Replace all the
female flight attendants with good-looking
strippers! What the hell -- they don't even
serve food anymore, so what's the
loss?

The strippers would at least triple
the alcohol sales and get a 'party atmosphere'
going in the cabin. And, of course, every
businessman in this country would start flying
again, hoping to see naked women.

Because
of the tips, female flight attendants wouldn't
need a salary, thus saving even more money. I
suspect tips would be so good that we could
charge the women for working the plane and have
them kick back 20% of the tips, including lap
dances and 'special services.'

Muslims
would be afraid to get on the planes for fear of
seeing naked women. Hijackings would come to a
screeching halt, and the airline industry would
see record revenues.

This is definitely a
win-win situation if we handle it right -- a
golden opportunity to turn a liability into an
asset.

Why didn't Bush or Obama think of this?
Why do I still have to do everything
myself?

Sincerely,

Rob Ford
Toronto Mayor