Mexico’s President-Elect Vows to Fly Commercial Despite Delay

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s frugal president-elect, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has vowed to sell the luxurious presidential plane and instead, fly commercial. But traveling like the rest of us can have one big downside: delays.

On Wednesday night, López Obrador endured a doozy, stuck on the runway aboard a commercial flight for more than three hours in the Pacific beach resort of Huatulco, Mexico. But rather than lament, he used his predicament to drive home his commitment to an austere presidency.

“I would cringe with shame at boarding a luxurious plane in country where there is so much poverty,” López Obrador said, in comments captured on video by dozens of passengers aboard the crowded, low-cost VivaAerobus flight.

They huddled around López Obrador’s exit row window seat — the leader was not so severe as to opt out of the extra leg room — and recorded him on their smartphones as they waited to depart.

“I won’t get on the presidential plane,” López Obrador said of the luxurious aircraft purchased by his predecessor. “I would be so embarrassed.”

The leftist leader, commonly referred to by his initials AMLO, has been outspoken about plans to shirk the luxuries often seen as political perks since his landslide victory in the country’s July elections.

Critics of López Obrador’s predecessor, President Enrique Peña Nieto, had slammed the purchase of a new luxury presidential plane, which was approved by his predecessor but delivered to Peña Nieto in 2016. The Boeing 787 cost the government of Mexico $218.7 million, to be paid over a 15-year period. The airliner replaced a presidential plane that was nearly three decades old.

After a campaign run on the core promises of ending the corruption that riddles the Mexican political system, reducing violence, addressing widespread poverty and leading with austerity, López Obrador said he would cut his salary, convert the sprawling presidential residence into an arts center and not employ bodyguards.

He also vowed to sell the presidential plane and fly commercial.

Wednesday’s unexpected delay — a result of bad weather that temporarily closed the Mexico City airport where the flight was headed — offered the opportunity for López Obrador to show off his man-of-the-people persona.

He smiled at fellow passengers as he explained that politicians had an obligation to use their power to serve others.

“Power is humility,” López Obrador said during the delay. “Any politician who acts arrogantly won’t last.”

Some have welcomed his commitment and said López Obrador is leading by example.

Carmelo Gasca, a security guard in Mexico City, applauded López Obrador for living and traveling “like the rest of us,” but was eager to see if the new leader would deliver on his campaign promises.

“He continues to show that he does not want to live with the luxury that all politicians live with in Mexico, at the expense of all the rest of us,” said Gasca, 46. “I think that is why we all voted for him, for that to change for once and for all.”

Many heads of state use private planes for greater ease of travel, privacy and security. Miguel Trejo, a software developer, supports López Obrador’s decision to sell the presidential plane but thinks the president-elect’s intention to fly on commercial airlines is unrealistic.

“It is unnecessary and unpractical for him to be traveling in commercial airlines, not to mention it is unsafe,” Trejo said. “He should be using a private plane, a modest one, for him and his team.”

Others, including college student Eduardo Elias Basaldúa, 23, considered López Obrador’s action a publicity stunt.

“That is how he wants people to see him, as a martyr who wishes to transcend in history, but I don’t buy it,” Basaldúa said. “What is the point of using a commercial flight if he can travel on a private one?”

Aldá Rodríguez, a 24-year-old law student, said the president-elect knows how to work a crowd. His proclamations about being a regular citizen were part of a strategy that worked during the campaign, and that he will likely continue to use, she said.

But that’s what this was as well: “political marketing, not honest conviction,” Rodríguez said.

As for López Obrador, he seems ready to go through with the promise of selling the presidential plane. In August, he said he had received the first serious offer for the aircraft, from Russell Dise, a U.S. businessman.

Dise is a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump and advocate for building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.