MERIDA, YUCATAN— Mexico’s flagship Maya Train project suffered another financial setback in the second quarter of 2026, recording an operational deficit of 867 million pesos (approximately $43 million USD) as high running costs far outpaced passenger revenues.
According to operational reports analyzed by El Financiero, the state-owned passenger railway—managed by the Mexican Armed Forces—generated just 117 million pesos in total revenue from services between April and June. In contrast, operating expenses surged to 985 million pesos during the same period, highlighting a widening gap between passenger demand and maintenance overhead.
The dismal performance persisted despite a boost in national international visitor arrivals linked to Mexico hosting matches for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Analysts had anticipated that the influx of international football fans and the onset of the summer travel season would bolster passenger volume across the Yucatán Peninsula.
However, June turned out to be the railway’s worst-performing month of the quarter, recording the lowest passenger income alongside the highest operating expenditures.
Industry analysts attribute the lower-than-expected ridership to broader challenges facing regional tourism. A recurring surge of sargassum seaweed along Caribbean beaches, combined with a general downturn in regional travel, has suppressed tourist numbers across the Mexican Riviera. Furthermore, local transport integration remains fragmented, making it difficult for incoming tourists to seamless adopt the train as a primary travel option.
To keep operations running, the federal government dispatched 417 million pesos in direct taxpayer subsidies to the railway during the second quarter alone. However, state funds were insufficient to bridge the gap, signaling that the state enterprise will require further budget injections in upcoming quarters to cover operational shortfalls.
Federal officials have previously acknowledged that the passenger division was unlikely to yield short-term profitability, maintaining that financial stability relies on the eventual launch of freight rail services across the network.
Yet with freight operations still pending and passenger revenue failing to cover even a fraction of baseline running costs, the Maya Train remains a heavy financial burden on federal resources, having failed to post a single profitable quarter since its launch.
It is becoming increasingly evident that the Maya Train is one of the worst infrastructure projects in Mexico’s history; it has resulted in astronomical losses and caused the country’s worst recorded act of ecocide by irreversibly contaminating the Yucatán Peninsula’s groundwater.
Although domestic and foreign experts repeatedly warned former President López Obrador that the project was environmentally unviable, he dismissed them as neoliberals and “coup plotters.”
Today, we are witnessing the consequences of the whims of an ignorant, obstinate leader who used the resources of all Mexicans for a pharaonic project that has yielded nothing but economic losses.
Furthermore, the only beneficiaries of this undertaking were businesspeople linked to López Obrador’s children; they were awarded the contracts without a bidding process and collected millions of dollars from the public treasury.
Source: El Financiero
