This trip report's flight between Mexico City Santa Lucia Airport and Cancun will take a quick 1hr 45 mins at distance of 792mi/1,275km
introduction
Welcome to another exciting trip report! While planning our tour of Mexico that I took back in May 2023 me and my mom were already set on going to Cancun as our next point of adventure. While looking for flights out of Mexico City international airport, we were shocked at how expensive fares were even on LCC. Not even a joke but one way fares per person were hovering around 120 USD on AM and 98 USD on VB which was crazy for a short 1h 45m flight. However to my surprise there were in fact cheap fares on AM for 49 USD one way per person but flying out of the not very popular Santa Lucia airport or Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) which is Mexico City's second airport that opened in March 2022.
At first I was a little hesitant venturing to a new airport that was about 25 miles away from the city center or about 1 hour in car then going to the popular Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez (MEX) which was a 30 minute car ride from the city center. I've also heard horror stories of how expensive getting a taxi was to or from the newer airport and how traffic frequently doubled the amount of time it takes getting from there to the city center which fueled my reasons to not to fly out of AIFA. After discussing it further with my mom we figured that we'd still be save a lot of money flying out of AIFA then MEX so we went ahead with it and booked our flights out of AIFA. Nonetheless I was very excited as this would be my first time flying AM, a new airline to the list!
Mexico City
Here I'll show off some of the highlights from our adventures exploring this incredibly large city! We did all the usual touristy things such as visiting The Zócalo. We were lucky that the weather during our short stay was quite nice.
The week before the city was dealing with the eruption of Mt. Popocatépetl which I feared was going to ruin our trip but luckily it didn't :).
Here are some cool photos I took of the iconic Torre Latinoamericano which was Mexico's tallest building for 27 years from 1956 to 1982. This building survived the 8.1 magnitude earthquake of 1985 without damage whereas several other structures in the downtown area were damaged.
We also felt adventurous and took the city's underground subway to get to places across the city which was extremely affordable.
Avenida Paseo de la Reforma.
Bosque de Chapultepec.
Basilica of Santa María de Guadalupe.
Hope you enjoyed these collage of pictures, now off to the trip report ?.
day of departure
The day of departure had arrived and we were ready to move on to experience the awesome beaches of The Riviera Maya :). Even though our flight did not depart until 7p, I had a zoom meeting at 3p so we checked out of our airbnb at 11am and ordered my uber right after so I can hopefully do my meeting using the airport wifi when I get there.
While en route to the airport I was quite nervous that it would take a lot longer then the 45 minutes from what the app estimated that it would take to arrive there. But to my surprise it was smooth sailing from the city center to the outskirts where the airport was located. From what I remembered the uber ride was around 26 USD which is a bit pricy if it were only for one person but it made sense for us as it was for two of us.
At least the ride gave us cool views of other less known parts of CDMX.
about 40 minutes later I began spotting the airport from the distance.
arrival at airport
After a fairly long uber ride we finally arrived at the airport.
Before entering the departure hall I wanted to do a bit of exploring around the airport. On previous videos I've seen that there was an impressive open court yard which I was on the hunt to find. After walking for a little bit I finally found it and me and my mom of course took pictures ?.
There was also an impressive green area down below which I wanted to explore but with my zoom meeting starting soon I wasn't able to. The important part is getting my boarding pass, getting through security and finding a good area to do my work airside.
Inside the departure hall.
Somebody is very excited to leave for Cancun already ?.
Since I had no luggage to check, I proceeded to one of the self check in kiosk to print our boarding passes.
There were plenty of AM desks ready to check anyone in.
After getting my paper boarding pass I was off to security control.
There was no line at security so I made it through in just 5 minutes. Since there was practically no one else in security line except for me and my mom, we were given quite the treatment since the officers there had nothing better else to do. I was bringing an empty plastic water bottle to fill it again airside but the officers while rummaging through my stuff ( 3 of them) took it out as if I was confiscating something illegal and said that this isn't allowed. That was very strange to me and wanted a reason for why since I've done this practically all around the world with no issue but I didn't want to say anything while there were 10-12 officers surrounding us so I just stayed quiet. Oh well I'll just spend a few dollars at one of the shops here ?.
Exploring aifa
Once airside things seemed a lot more 'open' and scarce of other travelers with empty shops.
As I was here I saw that there are cool artifacts located throughout the terminal and even a museum which I sadly missed exploring.
As it got closer to my meeting time I looked around for a coffee shop nearby and settled with going to Starbucks and get my meeting over with.
After completing my meeting, I realized that I had a good few hours before boarding so I opted to do some exploring of the terminal and see what I find. Aside from a Subway and a few local eateries and gift shops there wasn't much to see. Most of the terminal had advertisement and available to rent signs on them which gave me abandoned mall feelings.
Here's the departure board. Our flight is AM 596 with schedules departure time of 19:20.
What I found cool was that there were flags representing each Mexican state throughout the terminal.
Tucked away next to some gift shops I found this beautiful chapel I'm assuming used for services on Sundays. I was traveling on a weekday so there was no one there but it was beautiful and well kept.
plane spotting
After wandering around for a while I settled on doing some plane spotting.
Here's a Mexican air force 737 taking off.
Volaris A320Neo departing for Ciudad Juárez (CJS) flight time: 2h 5m
Viva Aerobus A320Neo departing for Cancun. Flight time: 1h 43m
The powerful jet blast left the runway a little dusty ?.
Volaris A320 departing for Cancun as well. Flight time: 1h 41m
Later I saw what seemed to be a small tornado that formed in the middle of the runway.
My aircraft
Here comes my aircraft a Boeing 737 MAX 8 arriving from Cancun.
Some information about my plane:
Flight number: AM 596
Aircraft: Boeing 737 MAX 8
Registration: XA-DAL
First flight: April 5, 2019
Age: 4 years
Since we had booked basic economy tickets we were lucky enough to be assigned in seats 28E & F.
Boarding
Boarding began on time we were assigned to board with group 3.
Another close up of our plane.
A look at the European style business class section which is starting to become a trend with other central and South American carriers such as Avianca & Latam. My prediction is that all carriers will eventually favor this as it won't take as much space as regular recliner seats on an aircraft. I wouldn't be surprised if Copa follows suit.
Arrived at our seats 28E,F
Unfortunately these aren't the 737's that have the PTV's which was a huge let down. Instead I got unlucky to fly on these exclusively domestic 737's that don't have any IFE.
Legroom was at least pretty good, these seats offer 30" pitch. A lot better then on my previous ULCC with Viva Aerobus from PVR to MEX just a few days earlier.
My view for the next 1h 45m!
Parked next to an Aeromexico connect Embraer E190 preparing for it's departure for Durango.
The only thing located in the seat back content was this safety card.
I found this to be interesting. This sticker advertised comfortable seats with headrests, PTV's and onboard wifi. All three of which were not available on my flight ?.
Boarding was complete and it's a completely full flight.
pushback
We pushed back from the gate 5 minutes ahead of schedule.
Mood lighting in the cabin set for takeoff.
takeoff
Taking off on runway 22R.
Until next time CDMX!
There were a few storm cells as we climbed and after a rollercoaster of a climb we broke into clear air.
The turbulence was so bad that many people around us were physically sick and scared.
City of Xalapa.
Cabin lights were turned on once we cleared into smooth air about 45 minutes into flight.
Here's a look at the tray table which was large and extendable.
inflight service
The crew sprang into the cabin to start the inflight service.
The inflight service consisted of a snack (trail mix) and a choice of drink.
For the choice of drinks I went for a coke. AM does offer complimentary alcoholic beverages in all cabins including economy.
The snack was fine but would have appreciated something more substantial from a full service carrier.
Cheers for a safe flight.
City of Mérida.
initial descent/landing
The FA's are preparing cabin for landing.
Welcome to Cancun!
We arrived at the gate 3 minutes ahead of schedule.
deplaning
One last look at our Boeing 737 MAX 8. Thanks for the fun ride!
This concludes the trip report. Thanks for reading!
