The unusual thing Viva does: it prints the law
The section you cannot copy from a comparison site, because it starts with reading Viva's own legal page.
Here is what sets this page apart, and it is not our cleverness, it is Viva's own choice. On its rights page, Viva publishes a summary of the Mexican statutory compensation ladder, its own restatement of the Ley de Aviacion Civil in force. In other words, the airline itself is telling you, in print, what the law says its passengers are owed as a delay lengthens. Most carriers bury this or leave you to discover it from a regulator; Viva lays it out.
We want to be precise about whose claim this is, because it matters. The ladder below is Mexican law as Viva presents it, not an independent legal opinion from us. We are reporting what the airline publishes as the passenger's statutory entitlement, and we are attributing it to Viva's own rights summary because that is exactly what it is. Two practical benefits follow. First, when a gate agent is vague, you are not citing a rumor, you are citing the airline's own published position. Second, because these are entitlements under law rather than a discretionary gesture, they do not depend on anyone's goodwill on the day. The airline can revise how it words the summary, so we check the current text against your specific disruption before advising you.
The ladder, hour by hour
As Viva's own rights summary states it. Every rung is a passenger entitlement, not a fee.
A small fixed electronic certificate. Modest, but it is the first rung, and it establishes that the clock is running in your favor.
A certificate worth 8% of the price of the affected segment. Now the entitlement scales with what you paid, which is why keeping your fare and timestamps handy matters.
Your choice: food and drink at the airport, or that same 8% certificate. Pick deliberately, a meal in hand versus credit toward a future flight are genuinely different things depending on your day.
Phone and email access, plus a choice of three: rebook on the next available flight with meals; rebook on a later flight with a certificate worth 25% of the segment; or take a full refund of the affected segment plus 25% compensation. This is the rung worth slowing down to choose well.
These entitlements are Mexican law as Viva publishes it, and the airline can revise how it states them; we check the current text against your specific disruption before advising you.
Meals and a hotel: what actually triggers each
Two supports people expect too early. One starts at three hours; the other needs an overnight.
Two entitlements in Viva's rights summary are worth pulling out on their own, because passengers tend to assume both kick in the minute a flight runs late, and only one does. Setting the expectation honestly is what saves the argument at the desk.
Once an airline-caused delay reaches three hours, Viva's summary says you are owed food and drink, provided as a meal voucher. It is not always offered on its own, so ask for it by name the moment the clock passes three hours.
A hotel is owed only when a cancellation, or a delay of four hours or more, forces you to stay overnight. A long afternoon delay that still gets you out the same day does not trigger a room, so do not plan on one for a shorter wait.
The weather exception: when none of it applies
The honest limit on every line above.
Here is the part the compensation ladder does not lead with, and you should hear it before you count on anything. None of the compensation applies when the cause sits outside Viva's control: weather, a natural disaster, an air-traffic-control hold, a bird strike, a medical emergency, and similar force-majeure events. It is the same logic that runs through US law, where a storm is not put on the airline's tab. That is exactly why the stated cause weighs as much as the clock: the 8% and 25% tiers are built for disruptions Viva caused, not for a snowed-in runway. Before we tell you what to claim, we check what Viva has logged as the reason, because that word decides whether the compensation tiers open at all.
Filing the claim, and being bumped from an oversold flight
Two practical points the ladder leaves out: the deadline to claim, and where denied boarding fits.
A compensation claim has to be filed within 30 natural days of the affected flight, and Viva says it resolves the claim within 10 natural days of filing. Read that 10-day figure carefully: it is the time to resolve the claim, to decide it, not the time for money to land back on your card, which follows its own separate schedule. Miss the 30-day window and the entitlement can lapse, so start it while the disruption is fresh.
If you are bumped from an oversold flight, that sits under a specific clause of Viva's contract of carriage, section 3.3, tied to the Ley de Aviacion Civil, and it uses the same three-tier compensation above, not a separate scheme. So an involuntary bump is read the same way as a long delay or a cancellation: rebooking with meals, a 25% certificate, or a full segment refund plus 25%.
The other rights on the same page
Viva's rights summary does not stop at delays, and two of these surprise people.
The same page carries several more statutory protections worth knowing, because they show up in ordinary situations, not just meltdowns. Viva lists a right to transparent pricing, the 24-hour cancellation right after purchase, compensation for a carry-on damaged in the airline's care, and rules on when a seat assignment is free by fare tier.
One entry deserves a flag, because it sits in tension with how a low-cost airline sells tickets: the summary lists a 25 kilogram checked bag as a legal right on regulated fares. That is striking on a carrier where a checked bag is normally a paid add-on, and it is exactly the kind of detail that is easy to misread. Which fares count as regulated, and how the right interacts with Viva's fare bundles, is not something to assume from a summary line, so treat it as a question to settle on the call rather than a promise to bank at the counter. We would rather flag the tension honestly than let you walk up expecting a free bag that your specific fare may not carry.
The US layer: DOT on top
On routes touching the United States, a second set of rights stacks onto the Mexican one.
Viva serves the United States, so US Department of Transportation rules apply on those routes in addition to everything above. They do not replace the Mexican ladder; they sit alongside it, and on a bad day you use whichever helps most.
Cancel within 24 hours of purchase for a full refund. This one overlaps with the Mexican 24-hour right, so it holds on both sides of the border.
If a flight is cancelled or significantly changed, 3 or more hours domestic, 6 or more international, and you decline the alternative offered, the refund of your ticket price is automatic under DOT rules. Ticket price only.
DOT does not guarantee a hotel, a meal, or compensation for the lost day; those come only from an airline's own commitments. And these federal rules are under active revision, so we confirm the current position before we act on your case.
The part no ladder mentions: where's the next seat?
Why a Viva cancellation is a different animal from a cancellation on a hub carrier.
Every rung above answers "what do I get while I wait." The question that actually decides your day is "what am I waiting for." A hub-and-spoke carrier that cancels your flight often reroutes you through its hub within hours. Viva flies you point to point, directly from A to B, and when that flight dies on a route with a single daily frequency, there is no hub bank to catch you and no partner airline standing behind the ticket. Nothing in Viva's published policy promises to buy you a seat on another carrier.
That is the honest low-cost bargain: the fare was low partly because the safety net is thin. It is also the exact moment a phone desk earns its fee. While the gate queue inches toward one overwhelmed agent, we are checking Viva's own alternates through Monterrey or Mexico City, same-day seats on other airlines as a new ticket, and whether the smart play is to take the full segment refund plus 25% and rebuild the trip instead of waiting for tomorrow's flight. Sometimes the best outcome is the compensation, the refund, and a different airline home. Knowing that menu exists is the difference between a bad afternoon and a lost weekend.
Before you call, have this ready
Sixty seconds of prep, a much faster rebooking.
- Your reservation code and the affected flight number
- Your timestamps and the stated cause: original departure, when the delay was announced, and any reason given, since the ladder turns on both
- Does the route touch the US? That switches on the DOT layer on top of the Mexican entitlements
- Which option you want if you're past 4 hours: rebooking with meals, a 25% certificate, or the refund plus 25%
- Your real deadline, a shift, a wedding, an onward flight, so we rebuild around what actually matters
Claim the entitlement before you leave the building, and choose the top rung deliberately. A certificate or compensation nobody at the gate mentions is one you have to ask for by name, in writing, with a date on it. And if you are past 4 hours, the three-way choice is real money: rebooking with meals, a 25% certificate, or the full segment refund plus 25%. Which one wins depends on whether you still need to get there today. If you call us mid-disruption, weighing that choice and chasing the paperwork is part of working the case, not an extra.
Frequently asked
What compensation does Viva Aerobus owe for a delay?+
What happens if Viva Aerobus cancels my flight or delays it more than 4 hours?+
What are my rights on a delayed Viva Aerobus flight to or from the US?+
Will Viva Aerobus rebook me on another airline if my flight is cancelled?+
Contact options
Reach Viva Aerobus directly, or let us work the rebooking, the certificate and any refund.
Contact Viva Aerobus directly
The airline's own channels, free.
These are Viva's own channels; confirm current delay and refund terms at vivaaerobus.com, where you can manage the rebooking yourself at no cost. Note that delayed or damaged baggage is handled by email and the online portal, not by phone.
More Viva Aerobus help
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