López Obrador’s iconic project — the “Maya Train,” a tourist line that runs in a loop around the Yucatan Peninsula — has drawn only 20% of the ridership expected when it was proposed.
The Maya Train started service on Dec. 16, 2023. While it’s not completely finished — two relatively little-used stretches are scheduled to enter service later this month — the most popular and heavily traveled parts of the line are already in service.
As of Dec. 8, authorities announced the train line had carried a little more than 600,000 passengers in its first 51 weeks. That is only one-fifth of the 3 million passengers authorities had claimed it would carry per year.
On Monday, the government announced a “package tour” deal in which another military-run, money-losing project — the government-owned Mexicana airline — would offer flights to stations along the Maya Train line.
The flight would take off, of course, from another military-run project, the new Mexico City Felipe Angeles airport, which is just starting to break even because the government forced cargo planes, and some passenger flights, to use it.
Mexico’s ruling Morena party is already running enormous budget deficits to fund its favorite building projects like railways and oil refineries — some of which are being built by the Mexican army. The government of Claudia Sheinbaum is now desperate to find new revenue sources.
Source: OEM
