Mexico Customs...
 

Why is it that when going into Mexico, after Immigration/Passport Control, the customs people there ALWAYS stop X-Ray AND hand-search flight crews? Meanwhile all the passengers just get the Greenlight and "Passé"
In addition if you brought your favorite adult beverage, they take it away from you.
I have asked repeatedly for them, or their supervisors, to show me where in their rule book where it says flight crew cannot bring ANY alcohol into Mexico.
I finally found one supervisor, with good English, to admit that there really isn't a rule that says we can't bring any, but that their rules don't say that we can. So therefore they just take it away from you.

Their country, their rules...

Most of the pilots and flight attendants I know bid around Mexico overnights because the hassle isn't worth it. But yes it's a lot asinine how they X-ray then hand search your luggage. As if someone is going to smuggle drugs INTO Mexico??? I suspect they want to "confiscate" personal items then expect you to buy them back with a bribe. ¡Viva la México!

LMAO...

They think that we ought to let every single Tomas, Ricardo, and Harrieta that wants to come across the border illegally stay here- no questions asked.

But our airline crews get treated like suspected criminals- in public.

Great stuff.

A company sent me to Mexico one day. Just prior to walking out of the terminal building in Mexicali, I bought a Coke from the Coke machine. I proceeded to walk out of the terminal towards the airplane. I got about 30 feet before I was yelled at to stop. They wanted the bottle back! I chugged it, handed them the bottle and contined on. It turned out Mexico bought an old Coke plant and shipped it to Mexico. They didn't want the, very, old reusable bottles to leave the country. Apparently they are "smuggled" out as souveniers or for antique shops.

Anyhow, Sometimes I've been given a quick waive off, other times a more thorough check, including them bringing the dog out to sniff. I've seen the TSA do the same things...

I walked to Nuevo Laredo once and there didn't appear to be anyone at the Mexican side of the border crossing... just walked right in.

Wait til Trump becomes president.

"Por favor, señor agacharse encima"

I have a few theories:

1) They don't like Americans.

2) They're dirt poor and corrupt so if they find prohibited items, they can make money by imposing fines.

3)They know we can essentially bypass security before we arrive in their country..(but Canada doesn't x-ray & hand search.)

it's like a different country or something.

The only thing I have seen confiscated was food.

Yeah, in Leon/ Guanajuato they took my lamb curry! :mad:

But...I ended up having an absolutely fantastic Mexican meal in downtown Guanajuato (truly a lovely city). The food was vastly better than the c**p masquerading as Mexican food here in the States.

:d
welcome to mexico señor!

he will make the Regional airlines Great Again...by just stop flying into Mexico... that will be nice. :p

Tit for tat. The US gave the Mexican crews the 3rd degree and now Mexico retaliates. That being said I have always been waved on when going through in Cancun.

I've had them try to confiscate liquids from flight crews while clearing security to take the flight back to the US. This didn't make the female crews very happy when they had to give up their expensive hair products. One way around that was to have the ticket counter check the crew luggage. Yes, you can do that.

Who cares? Why does known crew require me to show an additional photo id when the machine verifies my info, why do I have to do quarterly continuing training web portals, why do I have to watch the kardashians with my wife.. Because that is the way it is. Stop complaining

Yea dude I'll never forget they got my expensive whole foods shampoo. They probably brought it back for their familiy to use.

Things sure seemed to have changed. Did numerous flights to Monterey in 2001 and flight crews were treated like royalty. Customs and security always just waved us though with a smile.

Mexico Customs...
 

Used to carry a guitar. Went to SLP overnight. No problem. CUU overnight. No problem. AGU overnight. "Excuse me, you need to pay taxes for your guitar! " They asked me how much I paid for it, and a girl with a calculator said I needed to pay them some exuberant amount in Pesos. Yeah, like I carry that around. The agent then said I can leave the guitar at the airport. Yeah, sure I am. Luckily I was able to put the guitar on the flight with outbound crew back to the states and stored in CPO. Never again am I taking personal items there again.


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The Customs agent took one look at my personal items, started crying, and slipped me a few pesos! :p

I got "caught" smuggling a banana into Cancun once.;)

Rectally


...............

Not THAT kind of banana

Maybe not THAT kind of rectally...

If they ever confiscate any consumables, just tell them you're going to pour/dump it out in the garbage. Or tell them you're going to check your bag through and then just dump it out. They tried to take some tequila away from me in Guadalajara so I told them I wanted it poured out so they couldn't keep it.

^^^ winning! :D

Has anything changed since this original post?

I’m like 4/5 just getting waved through, the one time I didn’t get waived through they didn’t take any of my food and barely looked in my bag at all.

That being said I’ve heard of people getting musical instruments/food/electronics taken away or taxed.

I don’t pack around Mexico but I also don’t really bring anything on the road I’d be terribly sorry to lose in the first place.

if you look suspicious they will search your bag, and take away your food. if you speak Spanish, use it, if not, don't pretend to use it with them. it's like going to KCM/TSA, every airport has a dude that makes its own rules.

I had a few overnights in Mexico while flying for NetJets. They did very through searches of our luggage. I made sure my extra emergency cash was on me, not in my bag. They actually took our bags away out of our sight which was concerning.
Even when we were just stopping for fuel they'd make us pull all the luggage off the jet and search it on the ramp.
Canadian customs was easy. We'd call CanPass on arrival at the FBO and 90% of the time they'd just give us a clearance number and not even come out.