Hello everyone, this is the return report of the Mexico trip I took last summer. I used Aeromexico between Bogotá and Mexico, and back. You can find the report for the BOG-MEX redeye here.
Aeromexico operates two daily flights between Bogotá and México, summing up to Interjet's two daily, Copa's daily and Avianca's thrice (or four) daily flights, you have almost 9 daily flights between these two capitals. Huge amount of tourism and business (legal and not) between both our nations!
Since we were leaving at 18h, we had a full morning to do whatever we wished…so we went with our cousins to Xochimilco in the south of the city. My mum was a bit worried we wouldn't make it on time at 15h, but everything turned out perfect…except for the rented car's return, which was a bit messed up, but I managed to use my lawyerly skills to avoid the nasty employee's attempt to con us.
So after that minor impasse, we were all set at T2 of Benito Juarez International
Our assigned check in area was full, so we were sent to another one. The proceeding is basically like this: you check yourself on a kiosk and then hand in your bag. While on it, another lady would receive your migration form and check your papers so you would be OK to go wherever you're going to.
So you end up with a crappy flimsy cashier-receipt boarding pass ( of course only an AV-geek would get annoyed by this, the rest of the world doesn't give a damn about it). I was rather quick and painless.
With spare time to do whatever we wished, mum invited us to doughnuts at Krispy Kreme, which I declined and went instead to take a look to the place.
First to the purported shopping area on the landside, any ideas why this place is so empty?…is somewhat eerie.
Ironically Mexicana (AeroMexico's largest competitor) had an office in its terminal…but now it only remains as a vestige of its doom.
We then met again and had lunch at a VIPs near the security check… quite alright, but had I known there was a Chili's airside I would have skipped it and gone there instead. unfortunately the airport is under-signed so there was no way to know this. After eating we were off to the airside. BTW have I told you how crappy WiFi is at this airport, and in general in Mexico? In order to favour Telmex' de facto monopoly is practically impossible to get free WiFi anywhere there, quite annoying when travelling!
I must acknowledge that the departures side of the terminal is prettier than the arrivals side…however it still has the cheap materials feel.
It also had these small windows that allowed you to see planes in the central tarmac…but that's about it. MEX = No spotting from the terminal mate! I could see CM's flight to PTY and our plane was to be the one besides…I had high hopes it wasn't our plane so we would score a newer 737 again.
The view from MEX to the downtown's skyscrapers is awesome…except for the hangars in between.
We went to the duty free shop to spend our last Pesos, ironically the tequila and mezcal selection was really mediocre but I still had to buy some presents anyway so be it. I went to another store, Pineda Covalin, which I fell in love with during my stay, they had awesome ties! Then off to the gate, which it turned out to be the one with the older 737. Have any of you felt that sort of disappointment and despair when you figure you'll be in a long-ish flight on a crappy plane? Well, that was me at that point. Funny enough it turned out the friend I had met with at BOG was also on this flight, and we were seating nearby…so we were going to figure out how to swap seats in order to seat together. So time went by talking and soon boarding was called.
Boarding was rather disorderly as even with the best efforts to enforce some sort of order, my compatriots are pathologically unable to follow such sort of commands. But I managed to get in rather fast.
Our plane during boarding.
A more unobstructed view of the buildings from the jetbrige, hence the blue hue. That ESB-like building is torre Latinoamericana, it used to be the tallest building in America outside of the USA, I was thrilled to see it personally during my stay in Mexico City.
Upon boarding, and as expected, the cabin was dated, and even when the plane wasn't that old (about 5 years or so…like the A320s in AV) it sure looked as it had been beaten a lot. At least the seat pitch was decent.
Once boarding was concluded, which meant my mum and I had a spare seat in our row I invited my friend besides me…my brother would seat on the window behind me so we wouldn't argue on who called dibs on the window seat.
Everyone settled and off we were to Runway 23R.
Turns out AM doesn't only advertise within the planes, but it is really keen on use all advertisable space available.
Mexico City's CBD skyline…basically it's downtown and Reforma Avenue skyline
Terminal 1 with two european jumbos
Zoom to the French one…recently replaced by A380s
Zoom to the German one…748
An Interjet Sukhoi in front of the Mexicana cementery
Another Sukhoi landing…I hope to ride one of these ones someday.
The one we saw taxying is the one to take off before us.
A view to the antique interior before take off
After the Russkijet was done, it was our turn
Well…it turns out I was in front of a 767 and a 777, but thanks to the spotter undfriendly design I wasn't able to tell.
Some views of MEX and the city… adiós México lindo y querido!
My friend knows me since school, so she knows about my plane geekiness, and was comprehensive about it. Soon after takeoff we resumed our chit chat and watched the last of the country, which was our IFE for the flight.
This one is Pico de Orizaba if I'm not wrong, Mexico's highest mountain.
Those wondering…did AM provide any IFE, well they tried. But the plane didn't feel like it, so our assigned drop down TV didn't drop. The FA tried to manually override it with a pen, but she wasn't able. It seems it hapens a lot as the scratches show (OK…the picture turned out blurry, but trust me on this one, it was ridiculously scratched.) She joked about it at the end.
But I didn't care…I was really entertained chatting with my friend (we realised we had talked on this trip more than on the 8 years since we graduated from school).
And soon….Mexico was on our back…or on our side to be more precise.
Servicio de botanas: some peanuts and apple juice. Liquor was on offer but I declined (why?). At this point, I noticed the FA wasn't Mexican but either from the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico…funny thing.
Some city in…I guess Guatemala
A volcano in Central America… Guatemala or El Salvador perhaps?
A hot meal followed about 30 minutes later….an industrial bread bun, a nasty looking salad that I didn't touch and natilla…which turned out to be some sort of vainilla flavoured milk.
For main: Fussilli with…eh some sort of sauce.
AM gets an A on the effort, but a C- on the quality. The pasta was stale. I ate it just because, but it felt like a total ripoff.
Come one AM people, Mexico has awesome food, wouldn't it hurt to put some fajitas, gringas, or whatever delicious food you can find in your homeland on our plate?
Done with our meals, we kept talking and talking, laughing and gossiping till the plane landed and then it was time to part ways.
Our plane at BOG
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Verdict
AeroMexico
5.6/10
Cabin6.5
Cabin crew10.0
Entertainment/wifi0.0
Meal/catering6.0
Mexico City - MEX
8.0/10
Efficiency8.5
Access8.0
Services7.0
Cleanliness8.5
Bogota - BOG
9.0/10
Efficiency10.0
Access8.5
Services7.5
Cleanliness10.0
Conclusion
In a nutshell: a bleh flight, that would have awfully boring hadn't my friend flown with me...so no cookies for AM. Actually my mum and brother still say they would have been better off flying CM ( I bet that wouldn't be a great flight though).
Service wise, the FA was really nice and festive, which made things a bit more bearable. But overall, AM's offering for this flight was mediocre, the IFE didn't work (I've come to notice AV has pampered me a lot with the PTVs) and the food was also poor on the quality side. So...my second take on AeroMexico is that it is on par with CM, but not with AM or LA.
Thanks for reading, have a great 2016!
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Your flight is really disappointing. No IFE and barely acceptable food. The salad looks so plain and uninspiring. Ni hablar del plato principal. ;) AM was better when they used to compete with MX, but unfortunately since MX's demise there is no real competition left and AM can get away with a lot. As you said, Mexico is amazingly rich in gastronomy and it's a shame that you were served mediocre food aboard. It's too bad that they do not try to represent its country better through its food, which TK does brilliantly.
I don't know if CM would have been a better alternative. At least with AM you had the convenience of the nonstop flight. From some reports that I have read on CM, their catering does not seem too impressive. I think that the best carriers in Latin America are LAN and AV now. It's too bad that Varig, Mexicana and SAETA (remember that one from Ecuador?) are no longer with us.
Felices Fiestas y mis mejores deseos para el próximo año !
Que lastima que no haya IFE... Para un vuelo de cuatro horas me parece necesario! Pero fue peor en mi caso. 11h30 en un B767 de Aeromexico sin IFE o TV!! Que aburrido no puede imaginar...
Como siempre AM esta en hora, y la tripulacion simpatica.
Zoom to the French one...recently replaced by A380s: al principio estara remplazado por un B777 y muy pronto (Marzo me parece), el 380 llegara :)
En efecto AM es poco constante con su producto, en especial en lo que respecta el IFE. Ojalá algún día sean más consistentes, porque en efecto un vuelo largo con ellos no parece muy alentador. No sabía que AF iba a reemplazar el jumbo por 777s primero, pensaba que iban a pasar de una al A380.
Feliz año Nuevo Chibcha! Thanks for sharing this FR!
MEX looks very sterile with those plain white walls and deserted hallways. They should have really tried to add more windows or colors to make it look more attractive.
This cabin is like night and day from your last flight. These old B737s look like they are in rough shape. The lack of IFE on a daytime flight really hurts too.
On your takeoff shot of T2, I’m surprised there are still some tin-can AM planes out there. I thought that livery was long gone.
The meal tray looks fairly small and that salad looks pretty bad, they couldn’t find a tomato to add some color at least (the red tape on top doesn’t count!)? The main looks okay, but it definitely doesn’t fit in with what I would expect to receive on AM.
Shame the reports weren’t flipped. You got the better flight for the redeye. From what I’ve heard about CM (the fake Continental), I think AM is still the better option. AM is still better than the US carriers too.
It seem Mexican airports are not an AVGeek friendly place. Rather sterile (though functional in most times) and practically horrible for spotting. Indeed there's a huge difference between the product AM offers depending on the age of their plane, I don't find the difference as harsh on AV for example.
It didn't surprise me that AM hasn't managed to have a single livery...well they haven't been able to standardise the interiors either. But I'm happy about that, I love the tin-can livery.
I'm unsure whether to conclude that AM is better than CM. I haven't tried CM's new cabins. I think both compensate, whilst AM has ghastly catering their FAs where hit or miss regarding friendliness and service attitude. CM on the other hand, has decent catering and again, hit or miss FAs.
Thanks for a nice FR. I was recently on AM 664 MEX-SFO, but didn't get a hot meal. Why does AM give you a hot meal on a similar length flight to Columbias but not the USA too? The old interior on AM 737s is OK but pales in comparison to the new interior ( I got the old interior on my other AM flight AM 663 SFO-GDL)
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8 Comments
Your flight is really disappointing. No IFE and barely acceptable food. The salad looks so plain and uninspiring. Ni hablar del plato principal. ;) AM was better when they used to compete with MX, but unfortunately since MX's demise there is no real competition left and AM can get away with a lot. As you said, Mexico is amazingly rich in gastronomy and it's a shame that you were served mediocre food aboard. It's too bad that they do not try to represent its country better through its food, which TK does brilliantly.
I don't know if CM would have been a better alternative. At least with AM you had the convenience of the nonstop flight. From some reports that I have read on CM, their catering does not seem too impressive. I think that the best carriers in Latin America are LAN and AV now. It's too bad that Varig, Mexicana and SAETA (remember that one from Ecuador?) are no longer with us.
Felices Fiestas y mis mejores deseos para el próximo año !
Indeed I was rather disappointed by AM, I expected more of them.
CM offers a direct BOG-MEX flight daily. I hope I manage to compare their offering one day, also Interjet's.
I never managed to fly with none of the airlines you've mentioned, but I do remember them well, even SAETA, which flew 727s and A320s to BOG and MIA.
Gracias por los deseos para el 2016, lo mismo para tí!
Que lastima que no haya IFE... Para un vuelo de cuatro horas me parece necesario! Pero fue peor en mi caso. 11h30 en un B767 de Aeromexico sin IFE o TV!! Que aburrido no puede imaginar...
Como siempre AM esta en hora, y la tripulacion simpatica.
Zoom to the French one...recently replaced by A380s: al principio estara remplazado por un B777 y muy pronto (Marzo me parece), el 380 llegara :)
Hasta luego y feliz ano nuevo!
En efecto AM es poco constante con su producto, en especial en lo que respecta el IFE. Ojalá algún día sean más consistentes, porque en efecto un vuelo largo con ellos no parece muy alentador. No sabía que AF iba a reemplazar el jumbo por 777s primero, pensaba que iban a pasar de una al A380.
Feliz año!
MEX looks very sterile with those plain white walls and deserted hallways. They should have really tried to add more windows or colors to make it look more attractive.
This cabin is like night and day from your last flight. These old B737s look like they are in rough shape. The lack of IFE on a daytime flight really hurts too.
On your takeoff shot of T2, I’m surprised there are still some tin-can AM planes out there. I thought that livery was long gone.
The meal tray looks fairly small and that salad looks pretty bad, they couldn’t find a tomato to add some color at least (the red tape on top doesn’t count!)? The main looks okay, but it definitely doesn’t fit in with what I would expect to receive on AM.
Shame the reports weren’t flipped. You got the better flight for the redeye. From what I’ve heard about CM (the fake Continental), I think AM is still the better option. AM is still better than the US carriers too.
It seem Mexican airports are not an AVGeek friendly place. Rather sterile (though functional in most times) and practically horrible for spotting. Indeed there's a huge difference between the product AM offers depending on the age of their plane, I don't find the difference as harsh on AV for example.
It didn't surprise me that AM hasn't managed to have a single livery...well they haven't been able to standardise the interiors either. But I'm happy about that, I love the tin-can livery.
I'm unsure whether to conclude that AM is better than CM. I haven't tried CM's new cabins. I think both compensate, whilst AM has ghastly catering their FAs where hit or miss regarding friendliness and service attitude. CM on the other hand, has decent catering and again, hit or miss FAs.
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