For years, tourists around the world have taken to social media to denounce the rather terrible treatment they receive at Mexican airports. But now things have taken a turn for the worse.
With more than 500 operations between arrivals and departures, Cancun International Airport receives more than 20 daily complaints of mistreatment and delays, according to the newspaper. REPORTUR.mx.
Common complaints include: extreme wait times at immigration checkpoints (more than 2 hours), a lack of officials to process documents, missing connections and shuttle services, low quality internet, and even extortions committed by immigration officialsaccording to a local news channel El Economista.
Fed up with the mistreatment of their customers, the Hotel Association of Cancun, Puerto Morelos and Isla Mujeres sent a letter to the Minister of Tourism, Miguel Torruco, expressing: “major concerns from the hotel sector of Quintana Rooabout the “situations” faced by an increasing number of travelers at Cancun International Airport, President Jesús Almaguer said in February.
“We continue to receive an increase in complaints from tourists from the United States and Latin America entering the migration area of Cancun International Airport. They informed us about this the lack of migration officials, the excessive times to pass through the filters, and even more worrying, the mistreatment of the Colombian market by immigration agents,” reads the letter.
Juan Enrique Suárez Del Real Tostado, President of the Union of Secretaries of Tourism (Asetur), declared they closely monitor the mistreatment tourists have suffered at the hands of immigration officials. He said he would escalate matters to the Home Office to expose these facts.
“We have to give [tourists] adequate treatment. We understand that sometimes the work is so routine that it can create a situation where we forget to pay that attention, but we are going to propose a precise system of immigration training.”
According to Suárez, airport officials should “understand how much tourism means, but especially the image it can generate,” he said.
But that may be a little late. 73 out of 115 reviews on TripAdvisorrank Cancun International Airport as “Horrible.”
A family traveling in March 2024 said: “disorganized and long queue, not the best start to the holiday, luckily the rest of the trip made up for it…”
A group of friends who also traveled in March 2024 said there were no parking spaces available, so they had to wait almost an hour to get off the plane: “Forty-five minutes waiting on the tarmac to get to a gate, and then an hour to get through immigration. Come out of baggage claim and find a place to wait for friends arriving on another flight. No place to sit, no matter how long it takes for our friends to emerge. No consideration for the comfort of travelers by the airport authority.”
Another family also complained about excessive waiting times at immigration: “It took us 2 hours to get through passport control, and initially it took 45 minutes before we even bothered putting people at the gate! Almost an hour to get through customs. Complete chaos from start to finish, the worst airport I have ever been through.”
Quintana Roo Governor Mara Lezama has reportedly met with federal and state authorities, hotel associations and the Southeast Airport Group (ASUR) to define steps that will allow them to monitor security and streamline tourist entry at immigration checkpoints , REPORTUR.mx revealed.
