A number of passengers of the low-cost airline Viva Aerobus occupied the ticket counters of the Veracruz airport Saturday after flights were cancelled due to an engine problem.

The cancellation of flights between the cities of Veracruz and Monterrey and vice versa was announced on Friday. The airline explained they had been rescheduled for early the following morning.

But come Saturday morning there were no flights, which triggered the anger of passengers. In protest they occupied all the ticket counters at the Veracruz airport, affecting an even larger number of passengers.

Viva Aerobus later informed customers that the flights had been rescheduled once more, and would take off at 4:00pm. The airline explained that a preventative security alert had triggered an unscheduled technical revision of its aircraft based at the Monterrey airport.

The website Transponder 1200, which specializes in aviation news, published a report yesterday saying the security alert affected eight of the airline’s 30 Airbus A320 aircraft. After consulting with the manufacturer the company decided to keep the aircraft on the ground until the problem was resolved.

Close to 500 travelers in Veracruz, Monterrey and Cancún were affected.

On Sunday the Monterrey-based airline chartered two planes to move customers from those three cities, along with those departing that day from Acapulco, Culiacán, Ciudad Juárez and Guadalajara, to their destinations. The chartered flights were expected to continue until early today.

Source: Milenio (sp), Transponder 1200 (sp)