- The flight has been rescheduled and like, nobody's told me. You can't see how much I'm
grinning behind this mask. Welcome to Guadalajara in Western Mexico. Today we're taking a ride on airline called Calafia Airlines. Sounds very cool. We're going to take a
ride with them today. So let's head inside and
see what they're like. Let's go. Let's see if I can not get run over. Run run run. So yeah, we're back South of the border for part two of the Mexican adventure. And starting off with a ride
along Mexico's Pacific coast. So now is the time that
I should be telling you about Calafia and their
god awful IT systems. Effectively booking this, I mean, it's been an entire hassle from the moment I wanted
to book it really. Initially I tried to book online. Their website worked all the way through to the point where it didn't and then it would just like fail and it wouldn't let me book the ticket. So I ended up going to
an online travel agency and booking it through them. Got my booking reference and could log on and choose a seat allocation and pay like five pounds
or however many pesos it was to get a seat. That was all fine until
it came to online check-in and I went to check it online. It didn't work on the app. It didn't work on a mobile device. But it did work on my laptop, brilliant. Apart from that fact, it had lost my seat. So I tried to choose the seat again and they wanted to charge
me another five pounds or X many pesos to be
able to choose my seat. No issue with paying that really. I just wanted to make sure I got the seat. So I tried to pay for it. And it came up with the best
error message I have ever seen for an airline before,
which was something like the operation did not
fail to have been approved or something, which I thought brilliant. Has it not failed? Does that mean it's worked? Or I don't know, but either
way, it wouldn't let me proceed. So I did a Facebook chat with them and they managed to check me in. They sent me my boarding pass. All good, apart from the fact
that yeah, it doesn't work. I got to security here and yeah, the boarding pass doesn't work. So they've sent me back
to Calafia to try and get another boarding pass from here and see if we can get it sorted. If you're flying with Calafia Airlines, you need an awful lot of patience. I'm certainly learning
that with this trip so far and we're not even on the plane yet. Right. So something
else I've just found out is that the flight has
actually been rescheduled. And like, nobody's told me. It was due to be leaving in
about half an hour from now. It's actually now leaving in
two and a half hours from now. It's a two hour flight change and nobody's actually told me any of this. So I've only just found out by speaking to the information desk here
at Guadalajara Airport. Jeez Louise. Oh my goodness me. This is going to be a great trip. I'm looking forward to this. Right. An hour later, we're still waiting for somebody to come
back from their siesta and to check us in for this flight. This is just frustrating. Finally, someone turned
up and I couldn't help but give a little bit of good old, British, passive aggression. Hola buenas noches. Thank you. Yeah, that sure told her, didn't it. There we go, finally. One boarding pass to La Paz and apparently we've got
to stop somewhere as well. Which again, wasn't
aware of, but nevermind. It's all good. Got to go and join this massive queue to go through security then. Finally through security. Again, an absolute nightmare. Took about 20 minutes to get through. But nevermind, sorted now. So going to get something
to eat, starving. I had time to stop off at my
favorite airport burger joint Johnny Rockets, which seem
to be everywhere in Mexico. Pretty soon I saw my
aircraft land and taxi in. Heading now to the gates here and no surprise really for an Embraer 145. It looks like we're
heading from a bus to eat. And the E gates are here. Sort of downstairs to
a square at the end of the terminal building so. Let's head across the gate. My ride today was this
22 year old ERJ 145, delivered new to Brazilian
airline Rio-Sul in 1999. Aerolitoral took her in 2006 and she flew for Aeroméxico
Connect up until August, 2013 when Calafia took delivery. Yeah it's in a bit of a
beaten up sort of condition but isn't it nice to an
Embraer 145 for a change. Even if it is a 25 year old one. And hey, it's still an Embraer 145. Best seat in the house. Look at that view. Our first leg today then, took us to the city of Los Mochis. Flight time on this leg was
one hour and 16 minutes, cruising at 36,000 feet. You can't see how much I'm
grinning behind this mask. This is amazing. I love riding on Embraers. Lovely, lovely little planes to ride on. Look at that. I mean, seriously, that view. Crazy. I'm about, hour and a half
flight up to Los Mochis on the coast of Mexico first. And then I think we've
got a bit of a stop there before we continue on to La Paz. Which is on the sort
of Baja California bit. The sticky out bit down the side. Yeah. I mean, it's worn
anyway, this plane. The, I don't know if you can see it, the window's sort of patched
up with fiberglass and stuff and we've got sort of cracks in the window and all sorts of stuff like
that, but they're still alright. It's not too bad. It's still, an E-145. Lovely plane. The seats are pretty comfortable all be it a little bit tight. We've got nobody over
there on the other side. That's quite nice. And of course in the standard
Embraer one two config. I mean the color of the
seats and everything, It reminds me of an
old BMI regional plane. I used to fly on them
a fair bit years ago. So it's just a nice reminder
actually of BMI, I suppose. With the colors of the seats. Got a nice big tray table in front of us. Nice and large. What have we got here? Safety instructions. There we go. What I wouldn't give right now to be able to pick up
this phone, just here, make an announcement to the cabin. Ladies and gentlemen please subscribe to Noel Philips on YouTube. Right. Wow. Thought I'd come to the
bathroom and check it out. Not being in an Embraer
bathroom for a very long time. Emergency located
transmitter is behind there. So let's not touch that. I don't know, some sort of, I don't know what that is. Yeah it's a bit, okay, fair enough. Not in the best condition, I
have to say for the bathroom. But nevermind. No windows. But we do have sort of
the engines, either side. Oh look, and there's a
gap up there as well. You can stand and look at
the rest of the passengers while you do your business. If you feel so inclined,
but wow, there we go. Embraer 145 bathroom. Calafia have a good selection of buy on board snacks on board. Unfortunately none of them
were available on this flight. So I can't tell you if they're any good. They look nice in the pictures though. I figured I'd come an sit on this side because the sun's on that side and we're going to have much
nicer view of the coast of Mexico as we head up there. Looking down over at Sinaloa state which is just down there. On landing it seemed to take forever before we actually started to slow down. It seemed like it was a good decision to sit next to the bathroom after all. After we sailed past the
taxiway to the opposite end of the runway, we backtracked
back to the apron. It said it on the ground
that a place called Los Mochis, or Los Mochis, I'm not entirely sure
how you pronounce it. I've never even heard of it before. Just so happens to be
somewhere that we stopped on our way to La Paz. So hopefully, dunno how
long we're going to have on the ground here, but
hopefully not too long. Probably get on our way
across a little bit of sea to La Paz on Baja California. - Please don't hesitate to ask the flight attendant. Thank you. - Am I the only one that loves Calafia's little jingle? Leg two of our ride
today then took us across the Gulf of California to La Paz. Flight time on this leg was 28 minutes, cruising at 19,000 feet. We're leaving on the last leg then, a short hop across the Gulf of California from Los Mochis to La Paz. I think flight time,
looking at full flight, it reckons about 20, 25
minutes for this sector. So be on the ground in La Paz within half an hour I'd imagine. The longer I spent on this
plane, the more I realized that Calafia's Embraers are
actually pretty well used. The flight across to
La Paz didn't take long and before long we were
starting our descent down into the beautiful city of La Paz. My ride to La Paz today cost me £94.23 or about $129. This works out at a cost
of 15 pence per mile. Calafia well, when you eventually get on board are actually pretty decent. The crew were nice enough and I never thought I'd end up saying this but riding on an ERG 145
was actually really cool. Even if it was stuck
together with Pritt Stick. As always a big thanks to my Patreons. You can join them at the
link on the screen now to get access to my WhatsApp group, our weekly Zoom call and much more. Well here we are then at La Paz in Baja, Calafia, Mexico. And you know what, despite the fact that Calafia Airlines were an
absolute nightmare to deal with. And despite the fact that the
aircraft was old and battered, you know what? I actually had a really, really nice flight with Calafia today. It was great to get a
ride on an Embraer 145, even if it was a really old one. It just kind of added to the charm really. And it was great to have
that little stop off in Los Mochis on the way up as well. It's absolutely scorchio here in La Paz. So I am going to go back
inside before I burn and head back down to Mexico. Let me know what you thought to Calafia down in the comments below. But in the meantime as always thank you so much for watching. Take care, and I'll see
you on the next one. Bye for now.
