López Obrador wants to unload state jet despite long delay on commercial flight
López Obrador has also pledged repeatedly that when he enters the presidential office in Los Pinos this December, he will sell the presidential plane that comes with the office and fly on commercial flights like ordinary Mexican citizens.
Earlier this week, passen- gers boarded an airplane run by the low-cost carrier VivaAerobus in the Mexican beach resort of Huatulco. They hoped that soon they would arrive in Mexico City.
They did not. Instead, their plane sat on the runway for around three hours, grounded after the Mexico City airport was closed by heavy rain. The passengers had to wait for a subsequent hour outside the plane before finally heading off.
The delay would likely have been little noticed in Mexico had it not been for one passenger onboard. His name is Andrés Manuel López Obrador, though he is better known by his initials — Amlo — and he is Mexico’s president-elect.
López Obrador has also pledged repeatedly that when he enters the presidential office in Los Pinos this December, he will sell the presidential plane that comes with the office and fly on commercial flights like ordinary Mexican citizens.
On Wednesday, video circulated on social media of López Obrador sitting by an exit door on the grounded VivaAerobus plane — and jus- tifying his plan to sell Mexico’s presidential jet to the curious passengers who had noticed him. In one clip, the president-elect is shown saying he would be ashamed if he used “a luxury airplane in a country with so much poverty.”
“I’m not going to change my mind because of this,” he said.
López Obrador, 64, won a landslide victory in July’s presidential election in large part due to anger at the current right-wing government, which has been embroiled in numerous corruption scandals. He has pledged not only to sell or rent out the presidential plane, but also turn the presidential palace into a museum and go without bodyguards when appearing in public.
In late August, López Obrador announced that he had received the first serious offer for the Mexican presidential plane — an expansive Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner that has enough room for 250 passengers and was delivered at a cost of $218 million in 2016.
Ironically, the offer came from an American, Floridian Russell Dise, who is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, the American leader known for his harsh views of Mexico.
López Obrador has also spoken skeptically of plans to build a new $13 billion airport for Mexico City, to replace the overcrowded one that currently serves the city.
The president-elect has said that the airport is a waste of taxpayer’s money but pledged to support a nationwide vote on whether the project should proceed or be canceled.