Hi everyone,

I am normally to lazy to write trip reports, and more so on this particular route because I travel bewteen MEX and MTY often, but this time it was on Aeromexico's brand new B737-700W. Being my first time on this aircraft and since apparently no one has written a trip report on them, I'll give it a shot:

December 30, 2003
AM 950 MEX-MTY
B737-700 XA-DAM
Economy

My wife and I were meeting some friends in MTY for the new year's festivities. Normally, I fly ther early morning or late evening so I don't have much chance to pick a specific flight, but this time I intentionally booked a flight I knew was to be operated by the new 737.

We arrived at MEX a bit late, some 45 minutes before departure, but I had e-tickets and assigned seats, so it was not a problem. We proceeded to AM's check-in counters, which were really crowded, but there is a specific counter for MTY and GDL shuttle flights which only had a couple people on the waiting line, so check-in took about 10 minutes.

Since our flight was leaving in about 35 minutes, we proceeded to pass security, which only took a couple of minutes, and headed on to gate 10. For those of you who have been to MEX, gate 10 is almost in front of waiting gate B, so it was a very short walk.

Upon arrival, my excitement started as soon as I took a peek through the glass and saw a shiny new AM737 (XA-DAM) with those HUUUUUGE winglets!

About 15 minutes later, boarding started. The plane was abot 70% full I'd say, so boarding did not take long, but after the doors closed we just stayed at the gate for another 10 minutes for reasons unknown to me.

As for the cabin and interiors, as you would expect it still smelled new and it was spotless. The first thing I noticed as I sat down (seat 15A, right above the front part of the wing and engine, a couple of rows form the emergency exit) was the very generous room bewteen rows. I am close to 6'3, and always have problems with pitch, but I was amazed as I sat down and yes, I had spare room between my knees and the seat in front. God bless AM!! The seat recline is, well I guess normal. Nothing to brag about bu not bad. From my seat, i had a great view of the huge winglets which have the AM aztec warrior logo in a polished finish.

We pushed back about 5 minutes after our scheduled departure time, and taxied straight to runway 05L. Only one plane was on the departure line before is, so after it took off, we lined up and accelerated immediately. Man, it was a powerful and steep takeoff!

Climbout was a bit bumpy initially because of prevailing weather that day, but then it became very smooth. The head purser had informed us that we would be flying at 39,000 feet, which impressed me because this is only a 1:05 hours flight.

As we leveled off, flight attendants appeared to offer a bag of peanuts, and as always with AM, full beverage service (including alcoholic drinks) I settled for a tomato juice, which was given to me by a very polite and smiling female FA. I did not count the number of flight attendants on the flight, but I think I saw three only. I suppose the FA problem with the 737 was settled then, am I right?

After about 30 minutes at our cruise altitude, descent started, and it was rather steep. I suppose we were actually flying at FL390 and needed to go down fast, but who knows. The weather at MTY was mostly clear so I had good views of the nos familiar sites, like Cerro de la Silla, Carretera Nacional, Presa de la Boca, etc. We started our final approach for runway 11, and as we were on finals, the pilot made quite a few very noticeable corrections, which was strange to me as the weather conditions were almost perfect. I suppose they are still getting used to the new baby!! The result was that we landed way past the usual landing point and the pilots had to use reverse thrust and quite some amount of breaking to be able to stop. Not that it worried me though, as i knew MTY's runway is 10,000 feet long and more than adequate for this landing.

After a short taxi to the terminal, we parked at gate 8 and almost immediately the dorrs were open and we left the plane.

All in all, it would have been a pretty standart flight if not for the fact that I was fortunatre enough to experience the new 737-700 Another type to my list!

Hope you have enjoyed the trip report. Any comments are welcome.