Review of VIVA flight from Tijuana to Mazatlán in Economy

Introduction

Welcome to a new short-series of flight reviews. For a change, not only will we not be flying a oneworld carrier, but we'll be trying a new airline, Mexican low-cost carrier Viva, previously known as VivaAerobus. 

Living in San Diego, we're lucky to have nonstop service to many Mexican destinations from Tijuana airport, which is connected to San Diego by a cross-border foot bridge. The Cross-Border Express (CBX) facility is very convenient for Southern California residents as it saves a lot of time and effort in getting to Tijuana airport. Compared to San Diego airport, there are many more flights to Mexican cities from Tijuana, which can be reserved at significantly lower prices. As a major base for Volaris and Viva, TIJ is dominated by LCCs so if you're looking to fly Business class, there aren't many options outside of Aeromexico on a few routes. I believe this will be the first Flight-Report that includes the CBX experience. 

For Spring Break this year, we headed to Mazatlán, Mexico to spend a few days at a beach resort. The city of Mazatlán is not served by any airline from San Diego airport, but is served by several Mexican airlines from Tijuana. Viva appeared to offer the best value with a roundtrip costing about $180 per person including a 10 kg (22 lb) carry-on, seat assignments in the extra legroom "Priority" section, Priority boarding, and up to 3 free itinerary changes. 

The Viva website is modern and user-friendly. It was easy to understand the different fare types and ancillary options. For us, the "Light" fare bundle was the best option as it includes a 10 kg carry-on and a personal item. 

We were able to add extra legroom seats with priority boarding for about $50 per person round-trip. 

It's also possible to add on CBX tickets on the Viva website for about the same price as on the official CBX website (around $20-30 each way depending on the season). 

Viva offer streaming in-flight entertainment, though there is a small fee, which can be added during the booking process or on board. 

Routing

Pre-flight and CBX

I was very impressed with the Viva app. It has tons of information and is very AvGeek-friendly, even giving the aircraft registration on the day of departure, along with some facts about the plane!

It looked as if the flight would be running behind schedule as the inbound aircraft was delayed. As I principally fly with AA, BA, IB, and AS, none of which have a particularly good app (and BA's is downright awful), I was impressed with the good functionality and amount of information provided by the Viva app. 

As there had been reports of long delays at the border entering Mexico in the weeks leading up to the flight, we made sure to arrive at the CBX facility 3h ahead of departure time. 

We'd reserved parking online and it was a quick walk to the CBX terminal. 

Inside it just looks like a regular airport. It's impressive that it's connected to an airport that isn't in the same country!

There are kiosks and ticket booths to purchase CBX access for anyone who may not have done it online on via their airline. 

The path to the border is clearly marked. 

First an agent manually checks CBX tickets, then the QR codes on the tickets are scanned through automated gates

It was surprisingly very empty at that time. There was no wait anywhere along the way.

An escalator or lift takes you up one level to the actual bridge that crosses over the border. 

The bridge itself is about 119m/390ft long

You can see the regular vehicle entrance to the Tijuana airport from the bridge

As well as the border wall separating Mexico and the U.S.

And here we are on the Mexican side. The terminal is very modern and clean. 

The path leads right to Mexican immigration, where again, there was absolutely no wait. Immigration agents check passports and each passenger's FMM (Forma Migratoria Múltiple) documents. Make sure to fill these out online and print them ahead of time to save time! Oddly the FMM is only required for land border crossings–those arriving into Mexico from an international point by air do not need a form. 

Right after immigration, you'll find airline ticket counters where you can check in baggage if needed. I wouldn't recommend taking big or heavy items through the CBX process as it's quite a walk from beginning to end. 

Then comes the security checkpoint. Again, mostly empty except for one other person in front of us. It was a breeze as electronics and approved liquids could stay in the bags.

Spotted an Aeromexico Dreamliner

Once past security, we're in the regular terminal. 

VIP Lounge Tijuana

As we hadn't encountered the expected crowds or delays at CBX, we had well over 2 hours to kill before boarding. Luckily, there's a Priority Pass lounge at TIJ

The VIP Lounge Tijuana is quite large with plenty of seating. It was nicely quiet the entire time we were there. 

There's even a children's playroom, which is always appreciated. So we settled in to the couches right outside the playroom. 

There was absolutely no one on this side of the lounge for most of our time here–just one other family came in towards the end. 

There wasn't a huge spread of food available at the buffet, but there were some decent fresh options–better than most US domestic lounges anyway. I believe you could order more substantial dishes for purchase from the wait staff. Mexican lounges always seem to have wait staff, which feels premium. 

At this point our flight was showing an hour and 20 minute delay and they'd swapped the tail to a new aircraft. 

The tail swap was already showing on FR24. 

The FIDS in the lounge showed a new time of 18:55, only 50 minutes late, which was misleading. I believe that was meant to be the new boarding time, but that wasn't obvious. 

I tracked the inbound flight on FR24. 

We could see it taxi and park from the lounge so we knew we didn't have far to go. 

Boarding

It wasn't clear when boarding would actually begin but we figured we'd head to the gate about 10 minutes after the inbound aircraft arrived at the gate. 

With 240 passengers on an A321, I didn't expect deplaning to go particularly fast and sure enough it was still in full swing when we saw our aircraft from the terminal. Oddly, they hadn't attached the rear boarding stairs, which would have helped to speed up deplaning. 

Even though we could see the aircraft from the windows outside of the lounge, we had to walk around one side of the terminal to get to the gate, which was on the lower level on the other side of the terminal. 

Uh oh…unnecessary distractions! Hah, though it's convenient to have these, I guess, in case you forgot to bring activities for your kid on the plane–although building Legos on a plane isn't necessarily a great idea as it's easy to lose the pieces. I speak from experience 😉

We then had to walk most of the way down this side of the terminal to take escalators down to the tarmac level. 

Whoa! I was surprised to see not one, but TWO Hainan Airlines 787-9s! Apparently Hainan serve Mexico City from Beijing with a stop in Tijuana. I looked online to see if I could book Hainan on the TIJ-MEX route in the future–because that would be such AvGeek fun–but alas, it looks like they don't have the fifth freedom rights (or is it eighth freedom since domestic?) as they don't sell the Mexican domestic sector. 

Unsurprisingly, the inbound plane was still deplaning as we arrived at the gate. 

Soon enough, agents made announcements that boarding would begin shortly and invited passengers to line up in designated queues for their respective boarding groups. 

It was a bit confusing as the queues were in a weird order–from left to right it went: Group 3, Group 4, Group 1, Group 2 …I feel like someone put the signs in the wrong order because that's just a hot mess right there 🤣

There were only about 10 people in the queue for Group 1 in front of us so I was fairly confident there'd be room in the overhead bins above our row. Yes, I'm not used to flying Economy much these days so I stress about overhead space whenever I do, haha.

Boarding started at 6:52 PM. At that time, the app was showing a departure time of 7:14PM…seems a bit ambitious to board a full A321neo with 240 seats in 20 minutes, but we shall see!

The AvGeek in me loves tarmac boarding for the views. 

Our aircraft looked sleek in the sunset light. 

This A321neo has the signature double overwing exits, characteristic of the Airbus CabinFlex configuration (ACF) which allows for a higher passenger capacity compared to a traditional exit configuration. And this aircraft is pretty much maxed out with 240 passengers. 

Apparently Viva is the official airline of the Mexican national football (soccer) team. 

The first impression of the cabin is positive. It looks very clean, fresh and modern for a low-cost carrier. 

I believe these are the same Geven Essenza seat model found on the Lufthansa Groups newest aircraft cabins, though a simplified LCC version without in-seat power or other bells and whistles. 

While the seats look like they'll be comfortable–it's a false impression! As soon as I sat down and leaned back I was shocked by how hard the seatbacks were! 

I could feel the metal structure of the seat digging into my back. There was absolutely no cushioning–just a thin layer of leather covering bare metal. Luckily the seat-bottom cushion did have some cushioning!

At least the legroom in the Priority section was quite good. It felt like a 32-33 inch seat pitch, but knowing that these types of ultra-slimline seats are designed to carve out extra space at knee level, judging by how close the seatback was to my face I'd say the pitch was probably closer to 30-31 inches. Still much better than the knee-crushing 28 inches in the standard seating section. 

For reference, I'm 5'10" tall (1m78)

I could even cross my legs easily. 

As is common with many low-cost carriers, there was advertising in the cabin, but it was discrete. There were also instructions on how to connect to the streaming entertainment system on the seatback. 

Here's a look at the buy-on-board menu from the seat pocket. I was impressed with the amount of fresh options and reasonably good prices, at least for the food. The alcoholic beverages were surprisingly not much cheaper than on U.S. carriers. For example, wine cost 175 MXN (9 USD)

The tray table was tiny! Luckily you could adjust the distance to bring it closer.  

Let's have a look at the streaming IFE as boarding continues. 

The system is branded as VIVA Play and is generally available from gate-to-gate.

Upon connecting, a short ad plays

Through the IFE portal, in addition to the IFE content you'll also find flight info, information on Viva destinations, and information about Viva themselves. 

As for the entertainment content there are movies, including several Mexican films, TV shows, documentaries, Sports content, music & podcasts, children's programming, press & magazines, and games. 

It's not a huge library of content, but there are decent options, especially considering most flights are under 3 hours. 

The system was buggy and there was no way to pay for access in the beginning. It worked later on, but I had given up by that point. 

The Flight

Unsurprisingly it took a little more than 20 minutes to board the flight, but soon the doors were closed and we were on our way. 

Taxi time was quick with the last few rays of daylight on the horizon. 

Off we go on the 2h domestic flight to Mazatlán

Looking towards San Diego and the U.S. as we took off heading west towards the Pacific Ocean. 

The flight map through the IFE portal worked for the most part, but was a little slow to update.

There was even a 3D view, which was cool. 

As mentioned earlier, the page to pay to access the IFE didn't work in the beginning of the flight, but did work once we were in the air. 

Although 55 MXN is less than 3USD, as this point I'd decided to read a book. 

As it was about dinner time we ordered some items from the buy-on-board menu. The cabin crew were very friendly and spoke perfect English. We found the sandwiches to be a good value as they were quite large. 

Each sandwich came with a packet of jalapeño sauce–so Mexican! 

Arrival

The flight went by pretty quickly and soon enough we were on the descent. 

It turned out the app's estimated arrival time showing during boarding was pretty spot on as we ended up landing at about 9:40PM, an hour and 20 minutes behind schedule, not too bad. 

As it was a domestic flight there were no formalities on arrival so we just headed to the arrivals hall. 

We were happy to see the transport to the hotel was there waiting for us despite the delay.

After a quick 20 minutes we were at the resort and in our room to enjoy this beautiful view!

Which was even better in the morning!

Epic sunsets over the Pacific every evening

Thanks for reading!