Mexico businessman wants to buy presidential plane for $99 million USD

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Mexico City – Mexico’s leftist president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wants to sell the jetliner that comes with the job, calling it ‘a wasteful luxury,’ and a businessman is ready to pay $99 million for the executive jet, according to local media reports.

Gustavo Jimenez Pons made the headlines after he landed at Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s office with an offer to buy the President’s plane for $99 million. But despite the multi-million dollar offer for the 300-seat Boeing Dreamliner 787, Jimenez Pons had to get in line like everybody else.

Jimenez Pons wants to use the President’s plane as a taxi, to the tune of $20,000 per hour. His idea, it was said, was to rent the aircraft out to “presidents of other countries who do not have private planes, or rock groups like the Rolling Stones.”

The executive jetliner was purchased in 2016 by the outgoing president, Enrique Peña Nieto, who spruced it up with sophisticated communications gear and a special rest area for the president.

Local media reports, however, said that Pons’ offer of $99 million for the 300-seater Boeing Dreamliner 787 would be a cut rate price. The plane is valued at $220 million, said reports.

Lopez Obrador, who won a landslide victory in elections in July and will take power on December 1st, has said he will never use the plane and wants to sell it, and will not use any private aircraft for that matter.

In Mexico, selling the plane is seen as a tall order, given the small market for people who want to buy a jetliner. Newspapers seemed to express surprise that Jimenez Pons, despite what he said he had in mind, had to wait in line with people seeking favors, jobs or money from Lopez Obrador.

TMP Newsroom