Feeling rested after a couple days in Puerto Vallarta, I grabbed an Uber to take me to the airport for a flight on an airline I hadn’t even heard of until I started planning this trip. I was going to fly on Señor Air (which now markets itself as Cabo Flight Center) for the short one hour flight across the Sea of Cortés. This was an old school adventure, and I loved every minute of it. Well, almost every minute…

• Introduction to Cranky’s Mexican Adventure
• Cross Border Express is Great, But It Can Be Tricky
• Viva Kicks the Trip Off the Right Way
• Mexicana is Weird, But the E2 is a Delight
• The Spectacular But Distant AIFA Airport
• Mexico City is More Than Worth the Visit
• Aeromexico Does It Right in the Air but Not on the Ground
• Señor Air Has the Best Name and an Experience to Match
• Los Cabos and La Paz Couldn’t Be More Different
• TAR Was a Wild Ride
• Volaris, the Purest ULCC

Señor Air is undisputably the airline with the best name around, but it is also a relatively new entrant that seems to have spawned in some part out of the ashes of Calafia. This airline’s focus is on bringing people from nearby domestic destinations to the close-in airport in Cabo San Lucas. No, that’s not where you’ve probably flown. Nearly all commercial flights go to the Los Cabos (SJD) airport in San José del Cabo which is quite far from Cabo San Lucas itself. JSX is an exception, and so is Señor Air which charged me just about $200 for the privilege, including the extra cost of a seat assignment.

I was able to check-in online without any issues, but I wasn’t quite sure if this was a private jet-style situation or if I went to the terminal in Puerto Vallarta. I couldn’t find anything saying otherwise, so I went to the terminal. I didn’t need a ticket counter, but I looked for one to make sure this airline existed.

I can’t help but love that logo. It looks old-school like many of the bird logos that graced airlines back in the day, but it also kind of looks like the tilde (~) in the name as well as a manly mustache. This is good work, people.

Security was empty, and once again I was back ready to make friends in the close quarters of the PVR domestic concourse. I wasn’t interested in the lounge after my first cramped experience. Instead, I decided to just walk. There wasn’t a single airplane on the ground at the international concourse this early in the morning, and sad, sunburned travelers were only starting to trickle in for their flights home.

I stood and watched our the airplane arrive, hoping to get a good photo. But then I saw it was stopping out at a bus gate, so it wouldn’t get very close. I headed to the gate.

Fortunately, this was not a busy time of day, so it wasn’t nearly as stifling as when I last flew through. We were all the way down at gate 2, which has no jet bridge. Boarding was scheduled to begin at 10:35am.

Shockingly, someone showed up right on time and started boarding promptly. My pass was scanned, my ID was checked, and I was told to go down the stairs to bus #4. So I did. And everyone else followed me until we had 37 people onboard. It was a completely full flight.

The short ride out to the airplane ended with me taking a million pictures. I was so excited to fly this airline.

Our chariot was XA-SEN, a 25-year old Embraer 135LR. This airplane started life as an Intel corporate shuttle, so it had to be low time. And as I ascended the stairs, I was transported to an era that time forgot.

Señor Air/Cabo Flight Center 708
January 19, 2026

The first thing I noticed about this airplane is that it had those great, old, comfy, cushy coach seats that don’t exist anymore. The second thing I noticed was that my row (6) and row 10 were gray while the rest were blue. That’s weird. It wasn’t an exit row or anything special.

I had pre-reserved seat 6A so I could have the single seat on the side and have what I hoped would be a stellar view of Cabo San Lucas on the way in. I sat down and saw the interior was a little worse for wear, but man was that seat comfortable. I didn’t realize I missed the old seats that much.

There was no pushing back on this flight since we were at a hardstand. The pilots just fired up the engines, and forward we went. The single flight attendant was young and raced to deliver her messages in Spanish and English before we left the ground. She barely made it.

I always listen to the safety briefing, but I can’t say anything usually stands out. This time, however, I was surprised to hear that there were no life vests onboard the aircraft. It was seat-bottom cushion or nothing for an airline that almost exclusively flies over water.

We were off the ground quickly as we started a slow climb over the Bay of Banderas before hanging a right to head out toward Baja, passing over Punta Mita on the way.

There were several layers of clouds which we climbed through, but it was in the first one when I started trying to figure out what was wrong.

Someone a few rows up was making a yelping noise which I can’t really even describe. At first I thought it was a very weird laugh, but then it became clear it was more like a panic. As we climbed higher and higher, he got more and more anxious. His yelps turned into screams and became more frequent. This poor man was terrified, but I wasn’t sure that everything was ok.

The flight attendant came through with a service, and I asked her about it. She said he was just a very nervous flier, and it was ok. I guess he must have briefed her before we flew, though there was certainly concern from the other passengers throughout the airplane. It was loud and anxiety-provoking, to say the least.

Like the airline, the beverage service was also old school. She had coffee, water, or juice available for the short flight, and a selection of sweets. I took some chocolate chip cookies.

We settled in to cruise right in the top layer of clouds, so there wasn’t much to see. As you can imagine, the fearful flier did not like this. It was hard not to feel really bad for this guy. Fortunately, we weren’t at cruise for long. When we started our descent, all of sudden, he was quiet. I’m glad it was a smooth ride.

At long last, Baja came into view on the right side of the aircraft, but the real show wasn’t until later when we came over land just east of Cabo San Lucas. I had a spectacular view of the bay.

Just a couple minutes later, we had landed. Then we did u-turn to backtrack on the runway until we got to the gate. We had the whole fleet together as sister ship XA-SEA was getting ready to fly off to Mazatlán.

Walking off the airplane, I got a finger wag for taking a picture. It may just have been for stopping instead of continuing to walk, but I got what I wanted anyway.

The terminal building has a surprising and pleasant cactus garden out front.

We walked by it until we got to the far side where there’s a small arrival area for domestic flights.

When I booked my flight, I had added on the Cabo Cardinal transport from the airport to the hotel for MXN 350 + tax. What a great deal. When I left baggage claim, they had a sign with my name on it. A driver was ready to take me right away, with his car sitting on the curb at the sleepy airport. We had a nice ride to my next stop, the Park Hyatt Cabo del Sol.