Getting to Mexico City, if Possible, Is Not Easy

Long delays, canceled flights and packed airplanes greeted scores of travelers bound for Mexico Friday in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that caused major destruction in Mexico City and violently shook popular coastal resorts from Puerto Vallarta to Acapulco.

Travel agents said there was a host of Mexicans and Americans hoping to fly to Mexico City to find relatives and friends. While airports in Mexico reopened Friday, flights were subject to long delays and cancellations. All travelers out of Tijuana Airport were placed on a standby basis--even those who had made reservations months before.

“We’ve had a lot of people in today trying to make reservations to get to the areas where the quake hit, and they’re going to Tijuana knowing that it’s on a standby basis only,” said Jesse Villalpando, an agent for Mexico Air-Sea Holidays in San Diego. “Most of them have families down there.”

Villalpando said Mexican officials had informed him that it would be “at least the middle of next week before things get back to normal down there. Aside from that, we haven’t been told anything more than anybody else.”

San Diego County travel agents said tourists were not canceling their Mexican trips, largely because most had already paid for bargain package jaunts to resorts like Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco and could not get refunds. September is “off-season” for vacation travel to Mexico, so the number of tourists affected was not as great as it might have been after Nov. 1.

“I’ve been suggesting that some of them not go, but most of our people are acting like nothing happened down there,” said Shannon Anderson, an agent for Mexico Travel Experts in San Diego. “Apparently they are letting people in, which kind of surprises me.”

“If it hits them in the pocketbook, most people are going to go ahead with their plans and make the best of it,” said Michele Carlson of Ambassador Travel in San Diego. “The coastal cities didn’t get hit that much, and that’s where most of the people are going this time of year.”

Pat Horvath, manager of IAA World Travel in San Diego, said, “Everyone is braving it, whether they’re trying to get down there or come back home. It’s go, or suffer the loss. We were lucky this hit off-season.”

Carlson and other agents said the quake might damage Mexico’s tourist industry.

“People already are getting scared about going to Mexico, and this is going to give them one more reason to feel that way,” she said. “I find fewer and fewer people expressing an interest in going there, even with the tremendous deals they’re offering down there. People are afraid of crime, and they are nervous about the airports.

“I’d expect them to offer some pretty good deals in the very near future. The officials down there already are scared about the potential loss of business.”

Horvath said natural disasters like earthquakes “are forgotten pretty quickly by tourists.” But she said Mexico “has to make every effort right now to win back travelers. With the crime problems, the uncertainties with the currency and now this, there is every reason to go somewhere else. I’m sure Mexico will do something to attract the tourists back.”