Looking for an update on this thread.
Specifically, I am trying to ascertain the safety for a middle-aged white man (plainly not a local), who speaks some Spanish (of the Castellano variety) but far from fluent, traveling solo with a standard roll-aboard carry-on to take the metro from the airport to either Zocalo or Polanco (not yet determined) on a November Saturday in the early afternoon (touch down at 12.38pm).
I have never been to Mexico and am not familiar with the DF Metro per se but surely it cannot be rocket science for someone familiar with metro systems in various locales (Paris, London, Moscow, Budapest, New York, Chicago, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, etc...) to do one's home work in advance to determine the route to take and avoid looking lost/disorientated.
My question is purely a safety one. I am not concerned about issues of (dis-)comfort due to heat, length of walks, stairs to climb, etc... Nor am I terribly worried about pick-pocketing but armed robbery or assault would be more of a concern.
In addition to what is written here, I have also looked at what guidebooks say about it. They all say that it should be avoided at rush hour or late at night or if you have bulky luggage. In other circumstances, however, they seem to imply that it is a reasonable alternative to official taxis.
Maybe I am completely misreading this but, while they will not say that it is 100% safe, I cannot but be struck by the difference in tone between what they say about roaming taxis (where the message is a clear and categorical: do not do it under any circumstance) and what they say about the metro from the airport, where the message seems to be: keep your wits about you but, all things considered, it should be OK.
Am I hopelessly optimistic and naive and is this "wishful reading" or does that seem a reasonable assessment?