You may be wondering why I went to La Paz for one night in the first place when I could have just flown home from Los Cabos. The reason originally was that I needed to position myself to fly Transportes Aéreos Regionales, better know as TAR… for those who know it at all. TAR was the airline that made me most nervous, and in some ways it lived up to that billing. This is a confusing little airline which I can’t quite figure out.

• 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

TAR is not exactly considered to be a beacon of operational excellence. I did have a backup plan — there was a later nonstop from La Paz to Tijuana on Volaris — but I wanted some reassurance. Looking around the morning of my flight on Airfleets and other sites, it seemed like there may be only two active airplanes in the fleet, but neither one of these was going to get to La Paz in time for my flight, yet it still showed on time. I was stumped, so I figured I’d just show up and see what might happen.

I had checked in online, and I got to the airport about an hour early which was more than enough.

The ticketing area was completely empty save for a couple of TAR agents. Other airlines didn’t have flights until later.

There was nobody around in the security line either, so it was easy to get into the gate area. And then I sat in the nearly-abandoned terminal. It was just a handful of us and a cockroach who was slowly crawling around.

I had a couple hours to connect in Mazatlán to Volaris so there was some buffer, and TAR inexplicably had another flight to Mazatlán scheduled one hour later. That one I could see through flight tracking, and it looked on time. So I was feeling pretty good that I’d get there eventually, if not when I expected.

Then, out of nowhere, a TAR aircraft landed.

What the heck? Well, funny story, this airplane — XA-AFH — is an old Continental Express aircraft that TAR had been flying for Mexicana when that airline first started. That agreement ended, and the fleet sites showed it having been stored. (I submitted an update to Airfleets after, and it now shows as active there.)

It turns out, this airplane doesn’t seem to show up on the flight tracking sites like Flightradar 24 at all. That was… weird. Why do some of their airplanes show up but this one doesn’t? I don’t have an answer. But hey, at least we were going to be on time.

They called for boarding and told everyone to line up in a single-file line. Then they called two of us to the podium, presumably since we had both done web check-in. They gave us paper boarding passes despite having done web check-in, just like Mexicana had, and we got back in line.

As we walked to the airplane, they kept running up an engine out there and then pulling it back down, and I’m not sure why. But I am no aircraft mechanic, so… let’s board this thing. We were led in a long line — ok, not that long since it was pretty empty — and we boarded by stairs.

TAR 703
January 22, 2026

This airplane looked old on the inside, but it also looked tired and beaten up. Most concerning, I noticed the exit door looked like it had seen better days.

It was not full at all, so I walked back and took my seat with nobody next to me or across the aisle.

All loaded up, there was no reason to wait, so we pushed back early and were in the air before our scheduled departure.

We had a nice view of the region upon takeoff before looping all the way around toward the west, south, and eventually coming out of the turn heading east past the southern tip of Baja. I couldn’t see much as we were in the clouds and rain for a short time. We soon got out and over the water where things cleared out.

One of the two male flight attendants came back and served us drinks, but I didn’t want any water or juice. Done with his job, he took a seat in the exit row and pulled out a book. It took about 10 seconds before he was, at best, resting his eyes. Who knew they had crew rest on such a short flight?

The seatbelt sign never came off, but we weren’t exactly going very far on this trip anyway so I didn’t need to get up anyway. There was rather strangely an inflight magazine on this trip.

I don’t know what the point of this magazine is but it can’t be for TAR passengers. After all, the big feature was on the Yucatán and TAR flies nowhere near there.

Soon, the mainland came into view. The pilots announced our descent, and that woke the flight attendant up from his brief catnap. Maybe that’s why they announce the descent…. He sprung into action and collected trash.

It was a long, slow descent, but we had some really nice views of the lush Mazatlán area and all the farms surrounding it. We touched down early and had a quick taxi back to the terminal.

This was an adventure that I probably don’t need to repeat. But I suppose it’s hard to complain when your 45 minute flight operates on time and you live to tell the tale.