SARO (airline)

Servicios Aereos Rutas Oriente

A former SARO B737 at Miami International Airport in 1992
IATA ICAO Callsign UF SRO AEREOS ORIENTE
Commenced operations	1991 (1991)
Ceased operations	1994
Destinations	18
Headquarters	Monterrey, Mexico

SARO (Servicios Aéreos Rutas Oriente) was an airline based in Monterrey, Mexico. The airline was established in 1991 and due to their low prices, was one of the first low-cost airlines in Mexico and America. It operated scheduled and charter flights to Mexico City. SARO ceased operations in 1994.

"Una Aerolínea con todo... para todos!" (means "An airline with everything... for everybody!") which depicted the "low-Fares" character of the airline, not common in Mexico at that time.

SARO was a good attempt at starting up a true low-cost domestic airline many years before the present ones. It was riddled with adverse conditions, unfair competition from the "official" airlines (Mexicana and Aeromexico both part of CINTRA, a government operation). It was born from private investors from Monterrey, Mexico. But the large cost of trying to operate an scheduled airline against all kind of difficulties, some placed by the established operators at the government owned CINTRA, some by the official fuel supplier and the governmental airport operators conglomerate (ASA), were just impossible to overcome. At the same time, many corners were cut, crews frequently included a variable experienced captain together with a very unexperienced co-pilot (in those years the concept of Pilot-Flying and Pilot-Assisting were not really applied), the captain was the only one truly at command, and the co-pilot was merely in his seat by requirement; almost all take-offs and landings were made by the captains. Training was limited and performed in an old-fashioned way by an experienced Chief of Pilots imparting practice on captains and first officers as well. Equipment was old and too often had been heavily used and abused by the previous, numerous owners. Maintenance was done at other countries because of lack of infrastructure in Mexico; it was a usual practice to carry one or two mechanics on board on most flights for routine maintenance (and frequent minor repairs), and some of those mechanics were from Mexicana and were working in their "spare time", due to their familiarity with old Boeing equipment.

Many times, the flights became more and more delayed for various reasons: lack of equipment due to maintenance or diverse failures, lack of fuel due to the small airline becoming indebted with the official supplier (NACOA), and in practice, was almost boycotted by the airports assigning SARO planes the worst possible available positions to embark and dissembark, which caused passenger discomfort and dissatisfaction, the only thing that kept the users flying with SARO was the low-low prices, frequently less than a third of the two big national airlines.