What it's like to fly less than "Basic" on Volaris

During a recent trip to Mexico, I carved out some time to try a few of the country’s airlines. An afternoon out-and-back from Mexico City to the resort town of Huatulco gave me the opportunity to kick it old school on a Magnicharters Boeing 737-300 Classic; now it was time to head back to the big city on Mexican low-cost carrier Volaris.

The airline is Mexico’s largest, at least in terms of capacity, and its narrowbody fleet of Airbus jets fly across the Americas from Seattle to San Salvador. The devil is in the details when booking a flight on any low-cost carrier (LCC), so let’s back up and start this adventure a few months earlier.

I booked the ticket via Volaris’ website, a relatively easy affair. It has three fare buckets: Zero, Basic and Plus. I had no plans to bring checked or carry-on bags, which meant the carrier’s zero-frills $43.32 ‘Zero’ fare made the most sense for me.

I like a good view so I paid an additional $11.50 for a window seat in row 7. Exit row and bulkhead seats cost a little more, just south of $20, while middle seats in the back went for $7.77. Prices scale by flight length, but still don’t go super high. Seattle-Guadalajara, purely for example, had a spread of $8.99 to $32.

The carrier’s Basic fare only includes one personal item and one carry-on, but no checked luggage (the latter will set you back $55 more for the first checked bag). Stage length matters here too. A checked bag on the Seattle-Guadalajara route would set you back just shy of $100. Presumably this pushes most folks into the Plus fare, which appears to be typically 100% to 125% more than the Zero fare but includes bags and seat selection.

The last thing that gets you is an airport usage fee that, at least in my case, doubled the cost of the ticket. Volaris goes out of its way to make sure you know that this is a government thing, not an airline thing, so even though it is charging you, boy it wishes it didn’t have to.

Things got weird when I completed payment. A confirmation appeared as expected, but it was blank. No PNR, no ticket-number, nothing. A confirmation email was no better, just a blank template email that had no identifying information whatsoever. Attempts to resolve the issue with customer service didn’t work; I just never received a response. I only happened to receive my PNR through a follow-up email the next day welcoming me to the airline’s frequent flier club. Weird.

The rest of the experience was normal. I checked in via the airline’s app and added a boarding pass to Apple Wallet. Boarding began on time, with passengers arranged by fare bucket. Zero, as you might guess, was last to board.

Unlike many other low-cost experiences, however, Volaris was actively checking bag size during boarding and dinging folks who were out of compliance.

With no jetways, boarding took place via airstairs at the front and rear of the airplane — always a treat!

I settled into 7A aboard a half-full Airbus A320neo. The all-economy 3-3 layout isn’t much to see or talk about. The slimline seats have no recline that I could find, a small tray table, and an equally small literature pocket. There was no onboard entertainment, Wi-Fi, or in-seat power.

The aircraft took off on time, and charted a course away from the sunny, hot beach to the lukewarm, rainy capital of Mexico.

A short service began not long after takeoff, offering a selection of buy-on board drinks and snacks. A helpful menu was located in the literature pocket, and outlined a variety of options for flights based on stage length. Longer flights had meal options and snacks, which, when translated to US dollars, cost $5 to $15. All flights offered smaller snacks (under USD$5), liquor ($5 to $12) and beverages like tea and coffee (under $3).