Pilot in hot seat after challenging AMLO over airport plan

The pilot who confronted the president of Mexico over his airport plan is now being confronted by his bosses. Photo: Facebook

When President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was traveling to Mérida, the Aeromexico pilot embarrassed his famous passenger by asking him not to abandon that big new airport in Texcoco.

Delivered over the intercom, his brief plea to resume building the new Mexico City airport provoked applause from some passengers.

Now, the pilot’s bosses are asking Captain Rafael Bolio Cuevas for a detailed report of what happened on the Nov. 8 flight.

The incident happened when the president had just boarded Aeromexico Flight 533. From the speaker, the captain welcomed him and then quipped, “Hopefully we can convince him to do the Texcoco airport.”

The president was headed to Yucatan to address the Mayan Train issue with indigenous communities.

Canceling the new airport ended overly generous concessions to the well-connected, said López Obradór. It also complicates air travel in the nation’s capital, dividing flights between the existing airport and a renovated military air force base miles away in Santa Lucia.

Once the aircraft landed in Merida, Bolio waited for the head of the federal Executive at the door and there Lopez López greeted him, while responding: “Saint Lucia.”

Through a letter that was disseminated on social networks, Aeromexico’s chief pilot, Alejandro Terroba, asked Bolio Cuevas to submit a report to address an “apparent breach of internal labor regulations.”

The Association of Aviation Pilots denied that the employee received any sanctions.

A union statement noted that “for ASPA pilots it is an honor to transport the President and trust our professionalism and safety to take him to his destination.”

Source: La Jornada

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