Mexico launched its army-run airline on Tuesday, when the first relaunched Mexicana flight took off from Mexico City for the Caribbean resort of Tulum.
It was another sign of the outsized role that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has given to Mexico’s armed forces. The airline’s military-run holding company now also operates about a dozen airports, hotels, trains, the country’s customs service and tourist parks.
General Luís Cresencio Sandoval, Mexico’s defence secretary, said that having those diverse businesses run by the military was “common in developed countries”.
In fact, only a few countries – such as Cuba, Sri Lanka, Argentina and Colombia – have military-run airlines. They are mostly small carriers with a handful of propeller planes that operate mostly on underserved or remote domestic routes.
But it’s envisaged that Mexicana will carry tourists from Mexican cities to resorts such as Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, Zihuatanejo, Acapulco and Mazatlan. Flights appear to be scheduled every three or four days, largely on weekends.
The carrier’s owners hope to compete mainly on price: the first 425 tickets – for the flight from Mexico City to Tulum – cost about US$92, which the government claimed was about one-third cheaper than commercial airlines.
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It’s also hoped Mexicana will fly to 16 small regional airports that currently have no flights, or very few.
For those worried about being told to “Fasten your seat belt, and that’s an order,” the cabin crew on the first Mexicana flight appeared to be civilians.
Sandoval said the airline began operations with three Boeing jets and two smaller leased Embraer planes, and hopes to lease or acquire five more jets in early 2024.
López Obrador called the take-off “a historic event” and a “new stage”, marking the return of the formerly government-run airline Mexicana, which had been privatised, then went bankrupt and finally folded in 2010.
The airline combines Lopez Obrador’s reliance on the military – which he claims is the most incorruptible and patriotic arm of the government – and his nostalgia for the state-run companies that dominated Mexico’s economy until widespread privatisations were carried out in the 1980s.
López Obrador recalled fondly the days when government-run firms operated everything from oil, gas, electricity and mining, to airlines and the telephone service. He bashed the privatisations, which were carried out because Mexico’s indebted government could no longer afford to operate the inefficient, state-owned companies.
While unable to restore the government-run companies to their former glory, the administration depicts its efforts to recreate them on a smaller scale as part of a battle to return Mexico’s economy to a more collectivist past.
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“This will be the great legacy of your administration, and will echo throughout eternity,” the air traffic controller at Mexico City’s Felipe Angeles International Airport intoned as the first Mexicana flight took off.
López Obrador has also put the military in charge of many of the country’s infrastructure building projects; for example, the army built both the Felipe Angeles airport and the one in Tulum.
The army, which has no experience running commercial flights, has created a subsidiary to be in charge of Mexicana.
