2023-12-27 05:01:00
Mexicana de Aviación, the country’s first commercial airline, resumed its flights this Tuesday after its bankruptcy 13 years ago and the rescue of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who handed over its control to the Army.
“This historic event, the return of Mexicana after many years of not flying, is truly an event, so that this line that is emblematic of Mexicans, which has to do with our history, flies again,” declared the president. in his morning conference.
The Government had announced last August an initial investment of 235.3 million dollars for the new company, which was going to receive three Boeing 737-800 aircraft on September 30 and another seven on October 30. But, after its start was delayed, the Secretary of National Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, now rectified that the airline company begins with three of its own Boeing 737-800s and two rented Embraers, with the promise of renting five more aircraft in the first two months of 2024 and the next production of Boeing aircraft.
Initially, the airline will begin operations from the Felipe Ángeles International Airport to 14 destinations in the country located in the states of Baja California, Campeche, Chiapas, Guerrero, Jalisco, Nuevo León, Quintana Roo, Sinaloa, Tabasco, Tamaulipas and Yucatán. The airline promised tickets with an average cost up to 20% lower than the country’s other commercial airlines. “In compliance with the social objective, the airline offers trips at affordable prices, whether on single or round flights, with taxes and even with luggage of up to 25 kilograms at no additional cost. This represents an additional difference for the pockets of our fellow citizens,” commented Sergio Montaño, general director of Mexicana de Aviación.
The return of the state airline
Since May 2021, President López Obrador had expressed his intention to revive Mexicana de Aviación, an airline with government participation that was the second oldest in America, after the Colombian Avianca, but which in August 2010 went into bankruptcy.
On August 10, the Government announced an agreement with the 7,407 workers of the defunct airline, to whom it paid around 48 million dollars for the Army to use the brand. “We are entrusting this new public company to the Ministry of Defense because we need a strong institution of the Mexican State to be in charge of managing all these new public works that are being done for the development of the country, with the people’s budget,” defended the president.
López Obrador accused former President Vicente Fox (2000-2006) of privatizing the airline to hand it over to businessman Gastón Azcárraga, who is a fugitive from justice for crimes linked to the company’s bankruptcy. “It is the beginning, but the important thing is that this Mexican airline is rescued after acts of corruption and these deliveries of public goods to individuals,” he remarked.
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