Maya Train earned 151 million pesos from ticket sales; it will be difficult for it to be profitable.
From December 2023 to July 2024, the Maya Train earned 151 million 425 thousand 066.14 pesos from ticket sales.
According to information obtained by the Mexican media company Grupo Imagen through the Transparency platform, from December 2023 to July 2024, the Maya Train earned 151 million 425 thousand 066.14 pesos from ticket revenue.
This figure is equivalent to 0.029 percent of the total cost of the project, which was 515 billion pesos, as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reported.
The data on monthly revenue for the eight months requested indicate that the highest revenue was obtained in July with 33.9 million pesos, which coincides with the summer holidays, followed by March with 23.3 million pesos coinciding with Easter (Semana Santa).
Benjamín Alemán, founding partner of Alttrac and former head of ARTF, explained that it is too early to say whether the project will be profitable or not.
“But what we can say is that it will be difficult for it to be profitable,” said Alemán.
All projects of this nature have a period of leveling of income and demand at the beginning of their operations, which is commonly called ramp up, which is a consequence of people starting to get to know it, becoming familiar with the new transportation alternative, and people migrating from one mode of transportation, the specialist explained.
This usually takes from months to a couple of years. On the other hand, the expert said that these types of projects are never profitable anywhere in the world.
“In passenger trains, the investment that must be made in equipment, infrastructure, in the maintenance of the infrastructure is very large compared to what can be charged to users,” the expert added.
Therefore, the Mayan Train will constantly require federal resources to complete the income required to maintain its proper operation.
Regarding the announcement by President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum to use the Maya Train route for cargo transportation, Alemán mentioned that in the medium or long term, the project’s operation will have better income.
“But what we will see will be a kind of cross-subsidy, where the cargo service, if it becomes profitable, will be partially subsidizing the passenger service that will not be profitable at first,” said the analyst.
However, he stressed that the southern region of the country moves only about 5 and 10 percent of the country’s total cargo, so the size of the market is relatively small.
It should be remembered that the Maya Train route is not yet completely finished, section 5 is still in process, Chetumal is not yet connected, and the transfers from Playa del Carmen to the south of the State have not yet been completed (just to mention a few), concluded Alemán.
Source: Grupo Imagen
