What Airline Route Should You Take When Traveling To Manzanillo?

Lots of people now making contact and asking some of these same questions.

In the Calgary Herald on Saturday I was told that Air Transat had flights from Nov. 7th to 14th for $398 plus tax.  They do go non-stop all winter long to ZLO, but not at this price.  In addition AT usually allows a max. stay of two weeks.  It that doesn’t work for you then here are alternatives.

Check these please as they come from my slightly fossilized grey matter and may not be totally accurate.  Apologies for any typos.

1) Mexicana flies 7 days a week out of Alberta - three departing Edmonton and four departing Calgary, to Mexico City.  With a connection either through Mexicana or another Mexican airline, you can reach ZLO in one day.  Flights back are simple as the Mexicana flight leaves ZLO around lunch time and with the Mexico City connection, arrives in Alberta late that night.  People who have done this are quite happy with these connections and seem to be happy with the airline.

2) US Air begins flights in early Dec. departing Calgary to PHX, and then arriving the same day in ZLO.  Many people use this flight during the winter and really like the service.  Don’t know about US Air service to Edmonton - YEG?

3) Good old Alaska.  You have to fly Horizon to Seattle, either stay there overnight and catch a very early morning flight to LAX, or go to LAX the first day and stay in LA where you catch the 10:30 am next day flight to ZLO.  We have done this many, many, times and are frequent fliers (MVP) on Alaska.  While we love their people and the way they treat us, we’re tired of the ‘milk run’ and are ready to switch to some airline with better connections to ZLO.  We are still with Alaska for our Christmas return and are looking forward to seeing their familiar faces, but are certainly not looking forward to the marathon.  FYI, the lucky folks in Vancouver still have Alaska service to LAX, just like we did at one time, so they all fly Alaska to ZLO.

I have been talking to Alaska about alternatives like doing a once a week flight from Seattle to ZLO, non-stop.  With a little coordinating with Horizon they could easily get us to ZLO in one day.  Even better would be a once a week flight from Alberta to ZLO, aka Air Transat, but I doubt that will happen.  Alaska still has some loyal fans because they do service ZLO all year while others ‘cherry pick’ the peak markets and then abandon us the rest of the year.  That’s probably why Vicky and I have stayed with them.

4) Last ZLO service would be Continental.  They have several flights a day from Calgary to Houston - don’t know about Edmonton but there must be at least one.  From there, and again only in peak months, they service ZLO.  This still usually means an overnight, so there’s not much advantage here.

5) Other alternatives which maybe make Manzanillo’s market seem smaller than it really is, are flights to Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta.  If someone is renting a car anyway, there is wonderful service to either of these destinations.  Continental has flights every couple of hours from Houston to Guadalajara all year long, and Westjet and others fly daily it seems (usually non-stop) to Puerto Vallarta.  Many who would fly to ZLO but can’t find suitable service, choose one of these two options.  We know of several people this year who flew Westjet to PV, and then drove to ZLO in a rented car.

Hope the above helps.