After all the drama to get things ready, It was time to leave!
The day was August 31. We had planned at least 3 nights at Miami Beach on the Lexington Hotel (formerly Days Inn Ocean Front) at Miami Beach. But Life as always a way to change your plans on the fly.
Woke up very early as our flight was supposed to depart at 9:45 am Local time. We finished our bags and off we went.
My sister graciously agreed to deliver us to the Airport. Things didnt go very smoothly. As her car was "fixed" recently, including a very deep repair on the brakes. Because they were failing. While we were on the road, the car started to make some NASTY banging noises right on the front wheels. So my sis decided to call her husband and drive slowly.
We arrived to the airport on time. We waited until my sister finally contacted her hubby to get the car towed and fixed. Once things were allright, we went inside the airport.
We had no issues passing thru security and we found our gate quite easily. There was a not so much people.
And the problems started.. We waited.. and waited.. and waited.. The plane was now delayed by 30 minutes.. ( not bad, as we had a 2 hour connection time in Mexico City). And there are ALWAYS delays on Mexico city for ALL PLANES.
So we decided to find something to eat while we waited. We decided to eat some quick pizza because we only had 20 minutes now until the plane arrived.
We ate some SBarro branded pizza.. and we immediately regretted it.
Third time in a row the pizza felt bad on my stomach, second on my mother. So we finally concluded their pizzas are ALWAYS BAD.
And we will NEVER buy there EVER EVER.
Anyway, after finishing our food, we headed back to the gate area and a quick bathroom trip later we sit down in the waiting area.
The plane finally arrived 45 minutes late.
Everything went smoothly so far..
We boarded, we put our stuff, and waited for the Plane to fill out.
The Internet plane was a russian made with French-Russian engines, Think of it a smaller Airbus 319 in a 3-2 seat configuration.
There was plenty of space between the seats, and the thing was comfy. But it felt a bit "used". The most apparent damage was the upper compartments for baggage, which had peeling of wear and tear on the bottom of them.
Anyway, the plane was pulled from the gate and put in the taxiway so the preparation to fly started..
The wings were tested, engine #2 was turned on..and then we waited..and waited.. and waited.. then I told my mother.. "something is wrong, engine #1 is NOT starting, no vibration, no noise.. this is not normal". My mother said "oh Cesar, dont be such a pesimist". Yeah right.. mere 2 minutes after I told her.. the Captain said nervously in spanish "Dear Passagers, We apologize for the delays, but we might have some problems with engine#1, we're going to make some checks to see if its only the computer onboard and make sure its not something mechanical". So the plane was returned to a secondary gate, and we waited.. and waited.. then we were told to deplane.. as they were still waiting for a certified mechanic to check the engine.
15 minutes later, The plane had its cowling doors on engine #1 all open. And a technician was checking the issues.
I decided to pass the time talking to the gate airline "manager". Who was enthusiastic yet completely clueless. As he was insisting the engines of this plane were "General Electric" (hint, they are not). Also promised us that all our problems would be resolved in Mexico city at the Interjet offices. (Yeah right)
After 20 minutes, the mechanic closed the doors and I noticed they were testing the engine at high power levels (even at the gate we could hear the ROAR of the engine).
The engine was tested for 20 minutes more.. until we got the go ahead.. we were now 2 hours delayed... Good bye connection flight.
We were obviously ed.
Anyway, we took off towards Mexico city, we arrived VERY LATE because the traffic was very high as well.
As soon we touched down, the plane stopped on one of the taxiways.. and waited and waited.. turns out 4 other planes had priority for gates.. so we lost another 20 minutes further. And seen the last Interjet planes take off while on the taxiway.. there goes our plane!.
We had to scramble and find what other solutions we had.. hint.. NOONE.
Since Interjet doesn't have any code share and doesn't have any other later flight... We had to pass a night in Mexico city.
Once we deplaned and headed to ask for information. We found Mexican bureaucracy at work.
First, they lost our bags.. They could not find them because we were supposed to be on a connection flight.
They took almost 1 hour to find them.
Then the office of the airline, which was near the baggage section didn't gave a darn about our issues.. told us to get out of the baggage zone, go to the public area outside the airport security section and go to the main office frontdesk of the Airline. Which had huge lines for many clients who also lost connection flights.
After dealing with an overworked and clearly fed up manager (who had a very angry tall lady telling she was going to hire a hitman to kill him for their terrible service.. I kid you not).. we waited, and waited and waited.. you wonder why we had to wait so much? not a single of the workers there could give vouchers or new flights. They had to call the main corporate office so an executive could accept them(see what I mean about useless Mexican style bureaucracy?). And finally we had our vouchers, tickets, and planes (all of them had to be separately accepted by different officials, sealed and sent to multiple offices, branches, people, leaders and appropriate offices).
They gave us voucher for a local next to the airport hotel. This hotel was a 4 star one. Very good and pricey for the city (150 USD pernight). And also gave us vouchers for lunch and dinner.
Turns out, the lunch one was useless because by the time we got picked up by the shuttle. It was almost night.
Anyway, the hotel rooms were VERY comfy. And I thanked for for the extra clothes I had in tow.
We took a small nap until we were ready to dinner. (because we had to wake up at 4:20 am to get the 5:00 am shuttle to get to the airport by 6:00 and leave to Miami at 7:30am)
Dinner was very good. They had a big buffet with plenty of tasty offers.
We got to bed and set everything ready to wake up early (including 2 alarms, because we were exhausted..)
Woke up a bit earlier (infact, I couldnt sleep much, went to the restroom and the alarm hit. so I woke up my mom. I showered got ready and we're good to go.)
Interesting thing about Mexico city, if it gets cloudy and rains a bit. It can get VERY COLD at nights. It was cold but not that bad.
Anyway, waited for the shuttle, arrived to the airport, checked our bags and to the airport we went.
Interestingly part is. IT was the first time that we enter the farthest left side of the airport (old international flights section, which was revamped and added many stores/food sections).
It was fun to see huge groups of kids going to Orlando. Clearly for Disneyworld and Universal Studios.
Including some canadian school members (from Canada, to Mexico to Orlando?).
Anyway, we boarded our plane on time (Airbus A320).. plane left the gate, was taxied.. and waited.. and waited and waited.. turns out, there were more than 30 planes waiting to depart almost at the same timelines.. worse is.. again the national airline of Mexico (aeromexico) was getting priority again and again (for every 1 flight or other companies, 5 aeromexico planes departed). So we lost another 45 minutes in the taxiway.. slooowly moving to the takeoff zone.
To make things worse.. one of the main runways was not being used.. (why? seriously?, no construction workers.. nothing!)
Anyway...
The plane finally took off
The departure was absolutely gorgeous, to see the cloud formations with the sun coming out. definitively inspiring.
To resume..
Do not fly Sukhoi Superjet 100;s, They shake worse than old DC9's with no stabilizers, worse than Embraer's on stormy days,. Are almost as noisy as 727's and for my experience.. their reliability is crap.
Stay tunned for the next parts.. as we arrived to
MIAMI (MIA) International Airport
