Earlier this week, passengers boarded an airplane run by the low-cost carrier VivaAerobus in the Mexican beach resort of Huatulco. They hoped that soon they would arrive in Mexico City.
They did not. Instead, their plane sat on the runway for around three hours, grounded after the Mexico City airport was closed by heavy rain. The passengers had to wait for a subsequent hour outside the plane before finally heading off.
The delay would likely have been little noticed in Mexico had it not been for one passenger onboard. His name is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, though he is better known by his initials Amlo, and he is Mexico’s president-elect.
Lopez Obrador has also pledged repeatedly that when he enters the presidential office in Los Pinos this December, he will sell the presidential plane that comes with the office and fly on commercial flights like ordinary Mexican citizens.
On Wednesday, video circulated on social media of Lopez Obrador sitting by an exit door on the grounded VivaAerobus plane – and justifying his plan to sell Mexico’s presidential jet to the curious passengers who had noticed him. In one clip, the president-elect is shown saying he would be ashamed if he used a "a luxury airplane in a country with so much poverty."
"I’m not going to change my mind because of this," he said.
Lopez Obrador, 64, won a landslide victory in July’s presidential election in large part due to anger at the current right wing government, which has been embroiled in numerous corruption […]
This story is part of our ‘News from Around the Web’ publication, continue reading the story here: Despite flight delay, Mexico’s president-elect still wants to sell government jet
