- I'm getting a bit nervous now, I have to say.
This really does not feel safe.
- Well, hello from the state of Sonora in Northern Mexico.
And I don't know about you, but when I think about Mexico
I think about scenes just like this.
Bit of desert, a few cacti at the side of the road.
It really is an incredible
and a beautiful part of the world.
Today, we're taking a ride on a mystery airline.
And you know me, I like my mystery airlines,
and there's one right here in the state of Sonora
that we're going to be trying today.
They're an airline called Aero Guerrero,
and information about them on the web
is pretty hard to find, I have to say,
and booking them was even harder.
I mean, I'll explain more about that later on.
Come along with me, let's head down to the airport
at Ciudad Obregon, which is about an hour's drive from here.
And let's take a ride on Aero Guerrero
from the land of sombrero.
Let's go.
Now booking a ride on Aero Guerrero
was not an easy experience.
Their website, well, let's just say
it's a little bit crap, really.
Although theoretically you can
book flights on their website,
it actually is easier said than done
because I got all the way through the booking process
and then it wouldn't take any foreign credit card.
So I ended up paying by PayPal. Brilliant.
But then I didn't get a confirmation email.
The website crashed just as I clicked on the submit button,
the money went straight out of my PayPal,
and yeah, that was it.
All I knew was that they had taken the money,
and I'd got no idea if I was going to get a flight or not.
So I thought I'd drop them an email,
and it bounced back.
So I decided to give them a phone call,
but the number was not in service.
So late last night, I found somebody
who'd had some luck getting in touch with them via WhatsApp,
and I effectively sent them a WhatsApp message saying,
"What's going on? Is my flight tomorrow leaving or not?"
And a few hours later, I got a very shouty message back
from somebody in Spanish,
and they literally sent me a PDF document via WhatsApp
of my plane ticket for today.
And then the funniest part is
that they sent me another message saying,
"Just for your information,
"here's the phone number of the check-in agent,
"so you can give her a ring
"and let her know when you get to the airport."
That's the first time that that has ever happened to me.
Okay, there is a pickup truck at the side of me.
I don't know whether you saw that.
There's a pickup truck at the side of me,
and he was following me,
and they basically looked like a load of camo guys,
and they've got guns and stuff.
I'm a little bit nervous now.
I've got half an hour until I get to the airport.
I've basically ended up in a little town,
and it's a little bit dodgy,
hence why my camera is very low down
so that people don't see me.
Yeah, I'm getting a bit nervous now, I have to say.
And relax.
A few more minutes, we'll be at the airport now.
All this adventure already,
and we haven't even got on the plane yet. (laughs)
Hey, right, here we are then,
safely back at the airport at Ciudad Obregon,
ready to get our flight with Aero Guerrero.
See if we get any more excitement today.
The terminal at Ciudad Obregon Airport is pretty tiny,
with just a couple of restaurants
and the resident terminal cat to keep you company.
Still not knowing what type of plane I'd be on today,
I headed to the check-in desk.
So at least we knew it was a small plane, then.
All right, gracias, thank you.
- So I haven't got a boarding pass.
He just sort of sent me down to the gate.
Also, I still don't have a Scooby Doo
what sort of aircraft we're flying on today.
I don't know what they actually have in their fleet.
Their website doesn't seem to be very much help.
Once you're through security, there's even less here
than there is at landside at this airport.
There's just a few seats while you wait for your plane.
Well, that was nice and easy.
So we're through to airside.
They didn't need to see boarding passes or anything,
they just looked at my ID
and checked off my name off the list.
So all good.
So we're airside now, waiting for the plane.
I don't know what plane it is, not sure.
I didn't have too long to wait to find out,
because a few moments later, this Cessna Caravan
pulled onto stand right in front of the terminal.
I don't know how old this aircraft is,
because there's basically zero information
on it on the internet, apart from the fact
that it's only crashed once so far in its life,
when it ran off the runway Cabo a few years ago
and suffered substantial damage.
All right, so plane's here.
Little bit of research,
this aircraft crashed a few years ago
at the airport we're going to today in Los Cabos.
But hey, lightning doesn't strike twice, right?
I think it's the only Caravan they got these days.
Because again, they had another one that crashed into hills
not far from here a few years ago as well.
So it's now half an hour
after we were supposed to have left.
And we're still sitting here on the ground.
Who knows what's going on.
The pilot came out and went and got a cup of coffee,
and I've not seen him again since, so who knows?
Another half an hour went past
before finally somebody turned up
to board us for the flight.
So here we were then on the mysterious
yet somehow accident-prone Aero Guerrero
for a hop across the Gulf of California to La Paz.
There was no safety briefing or anything.
We just sort of sat down
and fired up the engines for the flight.
The Intercom system didn't seem to be working today,
so the pilot used a microphone and a speaker
to speak to air traffic control,
the first time I've ever seen this happen
on a commercial flight.
(air traffic control speaking Spanish)
Our first leg today then took us
across the Gulf of California on this rather wavy path,
cruising anywhere between 11 and 12,000 feet
depending on whether the pilot was paying attention or not.
Flight time was a nail biting one hour and 22 minutes.
So we're finally airborne from Obregon
on the Cessna Caravan, as it turns out, with Aero Guerrero.
The pilot finished his nap, anyway,
whatever he was doing, his cup of coffee or whatever,
and now we're airborne heading down toward La Paz
on the Baja Peninsula.
It's about an hour and a half's flight from here in Obregon.
It's quite funny, the pilot doesn't actually have a headset.
He's just talking through the microphone.
But that's brilliant,
'cause it means we can listen to air traffic control,
although he's just put in some AirPods
and turned some music on on his phone.
So I don't know what he's listening to on Spotify,
but I hope it's exciting.
It soon became apparent that this flight
was being completely hand-flown, which is fine,
as long as you keep an eye on where you're going.
So we keep straying off course.
There's basically, you can see
on the GPS display that he's following,
we keep straying sort of off course by a few miles,
and then every now and then he sort of realizes
and throws the aircraft into a bank to get us back on track.
At this point, the direction indicator
on the right-hand side appeared to have turned
into somewhat of a random number generator.
It's important to note that the pilot
does have a separate one on his side,
but it still left me wondering what else was going on
under the hood of this aircraft.
He's now filling out some paperwork,
and I don't think he's noticed
that we've strayed about 40 degrees off course,
because he's too busy looking down.
Very rarely do I ever say this,
but this really does not feel safe.
I'm actually quite worried, to be honest.
The wavy track continued, and at one point
we lost around 700 feet in a gradual descent
before we started to climb back to our original altitude.
The section over the water seemed to take forever
until we finally got sight of land
on the other side of the Gulf.
(airplane beeping)
Right, on the ground at La Paz.
Finally. That wasn't fun at all.
We've got a short stop here, I think,
and then we continue down to
San Jose, Los Cabos International.
Perhaps this would be a good time
to say thank you to SafetyWing,
who provided my travel insurance on this trip.
They offer great flexible plans for digital nomads
that you can just turn on and off when you need them.
They offer full COVID-19 cover too,
as well as this great travel map to help you plan
with all the restrictions still in place.
Check them out at the link in the description below.
All too soon, the pilot started up the engine again
and we started on our way down to Los Cabos.
Right, here we go again.
At this point, the aircraft started
making some rather strange noises.
(airplane thudding)
(airplane whirring)
So here we go then once again,
taking to the skies in this aircraft,
and I couldn't wait to get off at the other end.
(air traffic control speaking Spanish)
The next leg then took us down to Cabo,
cruising at an altitude of around
about 7 to 8 or something thousand feet.
Flight time was 27 minutes.
Being over land now,
the pilot finally had got a phone signal
so he could at least keep in touch with people via WhatsApp.
Right, so airborne then for the last leg of this trip
down to Los Cabos from La Paz.
(chuckles) Yeah, can't wait to go on the ground
in Los Cabos, to be completely honest with you,
and have a stiff drink when we get there.
This must be why the Mexicans invented tequila.
The scenery on this leg of the flight
was absolutely stunning,
which meant we got to see the mountains really close up.
I'm not entirely sure if that was a good thing,
but at least I got some good photos and video out of it.
Fairly soon we were starting our red line descent
down into the town of Cabo San Lucas
on the Southern tip of Baja, California.
(air traffic control speaking Spanish)
My ride on Aero Guerrero cost me £65.88,
or around about $91 US dollars for the flight of 306 miles,
giving a cost per mile of 22 Pence per mile.
It was great to be back on terra firma
after an experience I probably don't want to repeat.
I know I'm only a private pilot and not an instructor,
so I'm not really in the position to judge people's flying,
and to be honest, it kind of feels wrong to be doing so,
but from a passenger perspective,
this really did not feel particularly safe,
what with the climbs, descents, and banking left and right,
not to mention the pilot who seemed
to be more interested in this phone than flying the plane.
Even a non-pilot passenger would probably unnerved by that,
but I have to say that ultimately we did end up landing
with the only damage being to my nerves,
so I guess there is that.
I'd like to say a big thanks to my Patreons
for your awesome support.
You can join them to get access to my WhatsApp group
as well as my weekly thirsty Thursday Zoom call
every Thursday night at the link on the screen now.
Well there we are then,
at Aeropuerto Internatcional de Los Cabos,
Los Cabos International Airport,
right on the Southern tip
of Baja, California, which is the long sticky out bit
down the left hand side of Mexico as you look on the map.
And yeah, that was an experience
not to be repeated, wasn't it?
Not very often I will say
that I will not recommend an airline to fly on,
but with Aero Guerrero from the land of sombreros,
I would have to say, give it a big fat nada.
But let me know what your thoughts are
down in the comments below.
But in the meantime, I'm off to get a stiff drink
and head back to Mexico City.
So thanks for watching.
Take care, and I'll see you on the next one.
Bye for now.
Tequila. - Tequila shots?
- Yeah, double, please.