A British Airways flight from Cancun, Mexico to London-Gatwick was short before boarding when suddenly Mexican Federal Police swept in to search the plane, passenger baggage, and individual travelers.
The raid delayed the BA flight by roughly a whole day before passengers, crew, and aircraft reached the scheduled destinations, following a late night accommodation in Cancun hotels.
That flights are regularly used for smuggling of various illegal goods, especially drugs, is nothing new, and in this case it appears that the police were definitely in the know what they were looking for as a result of either a tip-off or an investigation.
Details about this situation were first posted on Reddit two days ago:
Recently had a nightmare time with BA.
Flight was meant to be leaving at 8PM, Cancun to Gatwick, we then were originally delayed because of our plane arriving late to cancun airport – so 9.40PM we are meant to leave now.
9pm – everything seems normal for our slightly delayed flight, Cabin crew arrive, they go into the plane with the pilots.
They eventually start boarding 1st class passengers and familieis with babys at 9ish.
Then boarding just stops, everyone goes back and they announce there is a further delay and we will get updated in 10 minutes.
No communication from anyone after they said they will give us an update in 10 mins for hours.
Around 10.23ish we all see the drugs via our phones etc. By the windows, as we oringally saw so many national guards and cops arrive, with sniffer dogs, and we had seen them taking swabs past us towards the security check in area.
I did not see it personally or have proof, but apparently 2 of the cabin crew were arrested – I was told by various other passengers that were at the other end of the glass windows /had vision of the other side of plane.
12.45AM they tell us the flight is cancelled as further investigations are needed on the plane.
We also got told that the plane might be seized for a few days. And because they have 1 flight in and out of cancun daily, it was more than likely we were going to be spread out across different indirect flights which will take us to somewhere in Europe and then london – everyone started to freak out.
We then had to pick up our bags from the conveyor belt, go through border patrol again (just like we had arrived)
Then eventually get to a hotel that is like a family all inclusive vibe at around 2AM.
At 5.30AM after waiting 3.5 hours, my partner and I fianlly get into our room. And then orignally being told that we need to check out at 11AM. Luckily we were able to stay until 3pm but could not sleep due to so much noise starting at 9am as the hotel had a huge pool and Beach with speakers and family activities everywhere with screaming kids – I even heard some people only got rooms at 8 due to the hotel not having enough rooms…
Eventually we managed to all board and leave at 10.15PM on the same plane after the nessecary investiagtions were done to grant our safety home.
This is overall an extremely unpleasant situation for everybody involved. For one, at a certain point the crew is no longer able to operate this flight as they run out of duty time. Then the flight is cancelled and passengers have to either be reaccommodated or remain on the same flight to whenever it is pushed to.
In this case, they likely had to go through immigration again, be transported to a hotel booked by the airline, and then return to the airport the next day (as it appears to be the case here).
A video shot by the passenger who posted this showed police officers recovering several bricks of drugs and laying them out on the tarmac:
Law enforcement operations leading to delays are likely not covered under UK261 for compensation and beyond the duty of care (hotels, meals, communication) I wouldn’t expect BA being forced to compensate passengers beyond whatever they decide to offer out of goodwill.
View From The Wing reports that some passengers said BA crewmembers were arrested in conjunction with this drug bust, but so far, neither Gary nor any other source has been able to verify this. That would indeed be interesting and add a new complexity to the case.
The initial Reddit post doesn’t mention anything about this though and had that been the case, could the flight leave with fewer cabin crew? How many crew members can a flight shed before the airline has to fly in a replacement from overseas?
Passengers were apparently accommodated at a variety of holiday resorts—after all, it’s Cancun. However, the hotel and holidaymakers’ loud nature resulted in more inconvenience. Awful—sounds like my personal version of hell!
This isn’t the first time that unsuspecting holidaymakers got caught in the crosshairs in Cancun. Who remembers the Hyatt shooting incident?
Personally, while I think it’s beautiful in some parts of Cancun, not only has it become a tourist hell but these days it’s also way too dangerous. I’d rather skip it in favor of a better and especially safer destination.
Conclusion
British Airways incurred a long delay following a police raid on one of its flights by Mexican police at Cancun Airport, where a large quantity of drugs was recovered from the BA aircraft that was bound to depart for London-Gatwick.
It’s unclear at this point who was involved in the smuggling operation since not only do you need to stop the goods on the plane, but also retrieve them at the destination. I’m really curious if these rumors that BA staff were involved turn out to be correct or if this was just a false accusation by someone.
In any case, it appears police had solid intelligence that they would find what they were looking for on this flight, which turned out ot be correct (to the detriment of everybody on that plane). At least passengers and crew arrived safely, even if it was a day later.
If you were a passenger on this flight, please comment below or send us a message. I’d love to know if BA offered any compensation or if some crew member was indeed arrested on-site.
