Mexico president says 2 offers for presidential jet

By The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday that there are two offers for the presidential jet he has been trying to sell since taking office.

The president said officials are studying the two offers: one all cash, the other half cash and half medical equipment.

Last week, officials said the latter offer was $120 million. The government has not said who the potential buyers are.

López Obrador said the plane was brought back to Mexico Wednesday from an airfield in California where it had sat for more than year because there it was exposed to the elements and here it will be better protected in the presidential hangar.

The president, who only flies commercial as one measure in his austerity government, said the Boeing Dreamliner contains all the luxury and excesses that the he says symbolized the administration of his predecessor President Enrique Peña Nieto. It was purchased for about $200 million.

López Obrador plans to hold his morning press conference in the hangar next Monday and allow the press to see it. On Thursday, he gave a video tour of the plane’s interior, which includes an elegant office, kingsize bed, shower and treadmill.

Earlier this month, López Obrador flew to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump. He flew commercial despite the pandemic with layovers in Atlanta and Miami.

Sales of tickets in a symbolic raffle for the plane have also resumed after a months-long pause caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly a quarter of the 6 million $25 tickets have been sold. Each of the 100 winners will collect about $1 million.

Experts consider it too expensive to reconfigure the plane to seat the usual 300 passengers a commercial version would carry.

The Associated Press


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