Photo from olganza.com

Mexico's no-frills airline, vivaAerobus, was recently granted access out of Austin Bergstrom International Airport by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The carrier, which seems to be the Mexican equivalent of UK's wildly popular Ryan Air, claims that it'll begin offering one-way tickets for as low as $9.99. For that ridiculously low price, you'll have to contend with "no jet bridges or sophisticated baggage handling system, and common use hold rooms, gates and ticket counter areas"—and possibly, as one friend joked, they just might ask you to get out and give the plane a push before takeoff.

vivaAerobus will offer nonstop flights to Cancun, Guadalajara, León, Monterrey, Puebla, and Queretaro.

“The costs of flights between Mexico and the US have been too high for too long. We are going to be the first airline to offer genuinely low fares on international flights," said company representative Mike Szucs. "We will attract thousands of new American tourists to the beautiful cities in Mexico, and we will position the city of Austin as a new tourist and business destination for the people of Mexico.”

vivaAerobus had originally hoped to begin service this month, but opted to wait until Spring of 2008 in order to construct the new south terminal at ABIA.

Flights are scheduled to begin in March (just in time to rent out your place for SXSW and take a much-needed holiday, no?), and tickets are expected to go on sale in a couple of weeks.