A pilot for a Mexican vacation airline is in jail after he locked himself on the flight deck of a Boeing 737-300 full of passengers who were expecting him to fly them from Mexico City to Cancun. Instead, he said he wouldn’t come out until the airline, Magnicharters, paid all its pilots up to five months in back pay. The pilot got on the P.A. and pleaded his case to the passengers, who were stuck on the plane until security personnel came aboard, forced the door, and arrested him without incident. The flight was then canceled.
Magnicharters has reportedly been struggling financially for some time, and the pilot involved told his passengers he’d had to buy his own charts to keep working. The airline declined to comment on the incident and is apparently still operating. It’s not clear if the pilots have since been paid.
Russ Niles is Editor-in-Chief of AvBrief.com. He has been a pilot for 30 years and an aviation journalist since 2003. He and his wife Marni live in southern British Columbia where they also operate a small winery.