In the current issue of Budget Travel, there’s an article on discount airlines in Mexico . As anyone who has spent much time traveling around Mexico knows, this is some welcome news. Costs to fly within the country on many routes are almost as expensive as flying to a neighboring country. As a result, most people who fly are business travelers with a lot of money at stake or tourists loaded with even more money. Everyone else takes the bus.
In all fairness, a bus trip in Mexico is usually pretty pleasant, at least on well-traveled routes. The journeys aren’t all that cheap, but they’re comfortable. If you spring for the top ticket (at about $7 an hour of travel), you even get three seats across, refreshments, and loads of legroom.
But it’s a big country and it would be a lot easier to fly sometimes. The change comes about through the bane of socialists like Chavez–a new round of privatization. You see, when the government runs the airline, or does some mutual back-scratching with an airline monopoly, there’s no point in competition. Without competition, you get what I just experienced in Argentina: one expensive choice for every route. You pay through the nose or you don’t fly.
So bring on the newbies: Avolar, Click, Interjet, Volaris, and Viva AeroBus. Something tells me the last one especially will be far from lavish, but if it’ll cut 15 hours of travel time and cost a reasonable amount, vamos!
