Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has at long last sold his predecessor’s jet, though at a fraction of what he hoped for.
(Bloomberg) — Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has at long last sold his predecessor’s jet, though at a fraction of what he hoped for.
The government of Tajikistan paid 1.7 billion pesos ($92 million) for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, significantly less than the $130 million the government once estimated it would get for the plane. Mexico bought the jet in 2012 for $220 million.
The plane had been one of the president’s favorite political props to illustrate a “transformation” of Mexican politics he has pledged to carry out. But the symbolism got a little murky after buyers failed to emerge. The plane was parked in California for more than a year and brought back to Mexico in 2020, then stored in a hangar as the president refused to use it for his frequent trips around the country, instead flying commercial.
“We’re like newly rich people who buy a yacht or a plane like this one and are only happy the day they buy it and the day they sell it,” Lopez Obrador said in a Twitter video announcing the sale from aboard the jet.
The proceeds of the sale will be used to build two hospitals in Mexico’s poorest states, Guerrero and Oaxaca, Lopez Obrador said.
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