New Airline Mexicana’s First Flight Forced to Divert

• The military-owned airline Mexicana needed to divert throughout its first flight on Tuesday.
• The earlier iteration of the Mexican provider was one of many oldest on the earth earlier than collapsing in 2010.
• Mexicana hopes to offer extra reasonably priced air journey in Mexico and increase to lesser-served cities.

Mexicana was one of many world’s oldest airways earlier than its collapse in 2010. Now, almost 14 years later, a government-run provider is up and flying with the identical identify — nevertheless it’s not off to a clean begin.

The primary Mexicana flight took off on Tuesday, flying from Felipe Ángeles Worldwide Airport in Mexico Metropolis to Felipe Carrillo Puerto Worldwide Airport within the well-liked seashore city of Tulum, the Related Press reported.

Just like the airline, each airports just lately opened and are run by the protection division. In line with AP, the navy doesn’t have any expertise managing a business operation.

The airline already has a poor on-time arrival fee. Throughout its first flight, Mexicana needed to divert the Boeing 737-800 to a small metropolis as a consequence of poor climate circumstances.

In line with information from the aircraft-tracking web site FlightAware, the aircraft sat in Merida for about 90 minutes earlier than taking again off, arriving in Tulum about 5 and half hours after leaving Mexico Metropolis.

Regardless of the early blunder, Mexicana has plans to increase to 14 preliminary locations from its base in Mexico Metropolis, based on a route map revealed on its web site.

The federal government additionally stated the airline expects so as to add one other 5 planes to its already five-strong fleet of Boeing and Embraer plane. The deal is value 4 billion pesos (about $236 million), Bloomberg reported.

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is behind the reincarnated Mexicana and its navy oversight.

After taking workplace in 2018, the chief put his belief within the navy as an incorruptible pressure and has given the armed forces management of every thing from trains and aviation to hospitality and infrastructure, AP reported.

This consists of constructing the brand new airports in Tulum and Mexico Metropolis and setting up a prepare line within the Yucatan Penisula, amongst different tasks.

The choice at hand over management to the navy stems from the president’s dissonance with privately owned firms, which he described throughout a press occasion as “thieves” which have dedicated a “nice theft.”

With Mexicana now within the arms of the navy, Mexico’s protection secretary, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, defined the objective is to decrease the price of air journey in Mexico and higher join its cities, masking each lesser-served markets and vacationer sizzling spots.

Tickets for Mexicana’s inaugural flight value about $92, AP reported, which the navy claims is one-third of the price of competing business carriers.