Photo: Google

By MARK LORENZANA

The presidential jet TP-01 José María Morelos y Pavón, which Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has tried to sell or raffle off for four years now, is still unsold. Adding to the problem is that the plane’s maintenance has also been halted, according to a report on Sunday, Oct. 2, by Mexican daily newspaper El Universal.

Mexico’s Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) declared the tender to maintain the aircraft void on Sept. 5 of this year.

On Aug. 31, El Universal revealed that Sedena had launched the tender to maintain the luxurious aircraft, and that there was a company that offered maintenance services for 22.6 million pesos. However, in the bidding decision, the Procurement Subdirectorate under Sedena’s General Directorate of Administration determined that the private company, Wise Extra Commerce — the only firm that answered the government’s bidding call and offered maintenance services for the jet— did not meet the government’s required specifications.

In response to a request for information by El Universal, as per the nation’s transparency law, Sedena explained that almost 80 million pesos — 79.5 million — have already been spent for the maintenance of the presidential jet from Dec. 1, 2018 to Aug. 10 of this year.

The plane, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, was acquired in 2012 for $200 million during the administration of former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. However, López Obrador, ever since the beginning of his term, has made getting rid of the opulent aircraft a centerpiece of his so-called austerity program.

AMLO has not found any takers for the plane, though, even after sending it to the United States to look for buyers, trying to lure corporations and business executives in the country to purchase the aircraft and even raffling it off. In March of this year, López Obrador said he planned to park the plane in the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) to rent it out to private individuals for weddings or coming-of-age parties or quinceañeras, so that the rental fees would pay for the aircraft’s maintenance.

According to aviation experts, the jet has been difficult to sell because it is configured to carry only 80 people and has a full presidential suite with a private, marble-lined bathroom, which makes it costly to reconfigure into a typical passenger aircraft that would transport up to 300 passengers.