A major winter storm in Mexico leaves thousands of travelers stranded

Christian Martínez had a direct flight from Tijuana to Guadalajara. But due to extreme weather conditions – the excuse given by the airlines and airport authorities – his three-hour-long flight was either delayed indefinitely or canceled.

“My flight didn’t appear on the screens… it simply didn’t exist, it wasn’t listed as being canceled or late,” he explains to EL PAÍS over the phone.

Along with Martínez, more than 30,000 people have been affected across Mexico since December 24, with around 180 flights being canceled or severely delayed due to winter weather.

“It’s chaos,” says Martínez, referring to everything that happened in the more than 12 hours that he spent waiting for a new flight. Like other travelers, he emphasizes the airline’s lack of personnel.

“It wasn’t the Tijuana climate – it was Volaris,” he affirms.

The Mexican airline maintains that the problems were due to the “climatic conditions” that have engulfed the country:

“We are working tirelessly to solve these operational difficulties and take our clients safely to their destinations,” read a statement released by Volaris.

Delays and cancellations of flights from several different airlines have also occurred at the airports in Cancun and Mexico City. On Tuesday, December 27, Volaris assured the public that it had overcome the weather conditions and would be able to carry out 582 flights to transport 109,000 passengers.

Martínez was going to travel on December 25 at 8pm.

“I arrived two hours early and I already saw a lot of people. At first, I thought it was because of the [Christmas] holidays… but there were tons of people.”

After all the time he spent waiting – he arrived at 6pm on the 25th and gave up on the 26th at 8am – for a response from the airline (Volaris), Martínez got tired and bought a bus ticket to Guadalajara.

“I started to panic. And I said ‘well, I’m going to another airport, with another connection.”

He considered traveling to Mexico City to make a connecting flight to his destination, or even crossing the border to leave from Los Angeles.

After considering all his options, Martínez tried to pick up his suitcase – which he had already checked in – and leave the airport.

“I no longer wanted my refund – I just wanted my bag returned. But when they let me pass, it was just a horror. People started shouting ‘the suitcases are being stolen!’ Nobody was taking care of them. It was a sea of suitcases,” he sighs.

Félix – who prefers not to give his full name for fear of not getting his refund – experienced a similar chaos. He works in Ensenada, about 60 miles from Tijuana. On the 24th, at the height of Christmas travel, he hoped to fly to Tapachula, in the state of Chiapas, to see his family. The direct flight would have only taken four hours.

“Normally, I take the flight that arrives first thing in the morning,” he explains. However, at dawn, when he arrived at the airport, his flight – just like Martínez’s – did not appear on the board at all.

“There was fog – all flights leaving Tijuana were canceled. But what caused the chaos was that there was no one at the boarding gates, there were no airline personnel.”

Felix also left the premises. “What I did was leave the airport and, over the phone, insist that they reassign me a flight. It took about an hour-and-a-half to get an answer. They gave me a new flight for the 26th. Christmas and Christmas Eve had already passed.”

After filling out the online form to change the flight, he had another problem: the date the agent had promised him was not available. He was assigned an even later flight, on the 28th.

“I’m going back for the fourth time to see if I can get a confirmation.”

On Monday night, the Tijuana airport authorities indicated that they were recovering from “the presence of fog” and that the airport would soon be “operating regularly.”

By phone – still in Tijuana as of Wednesday – Félix assures EL PAÍS that, all things considered, he was “lucky.”

“Some friends are hosting me. But there are people who don’t have anybody who can help them… they’re sleeping at the airport right now.”

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