On October 6, 2023, President López Obrador said that the Tren Maya from Palenque to Cancún “se podría inaugurar” (could be inaugurated) on December 15. The full 1,554 kilometers would be ready “a más tardar en febrero de 2024” (by February 2024 at the latest).
The first trip open to the public ran on December 16, 2023, with delays of up to four hours. The train scheduled for 11:00 left Cancún at 15:00. On February 29, 2024, two more stations opened. Ten stations were still under construction.
In June 2022, Bloomberg Línea reported that President López Obrador would inaugurate the Olmeca refinery at Dos Bocas on July 1, 2022. Pemex confirmed that the refinery would begin operations “hasta 2023” (not until 2023). (Video in Spanish.)
In July 2024, Bloomberg Línea reported that the refinery had reached its second anniversary “sin producción comercial de combustibles” (without commercial fuel production). It counted “al menos seis retrasos” (at least six delays).
The modernization of Line 1 of the Mexico City Metro was scheduled to run from July 2022 to March 2023. The section from Pantitlán to Salto del Agua was to reopen to passengers in March. In February, the authorities moved the date to May. The May date also passed.
Expansión reported in August 2023 that Martí Batres, the head of the city government, would not give a new date: “Ya no estamos lejos, pero no te pongo una fecha precisa” (We are not far now, but I will not give a precise date).
On Wednesday, April 12, 2023, Ignacio Mier, president of the Junta de Coordinación Política of Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies, called a meeting for 9:30 a.m. on a reform of the Electoral Tribunal. At 11:20, it had not begun, El Universal reported.
Jorge Álvarez Máynez, leader of the Movimiento Ciudadano deputies, said: “No sean mal pensados: simplemente a todos se les hizo tarde hoy” (Do not think badly of anyone: it simply got late on everyone today).
He was warning of an albazo, a surprise maneuver, by leaders meeting somewhere else. His sarcasm rests on se les hizo tarde, the everyday excuse for being late.
The school regulation for public basic education in the state of Sonora, signed by the governor in 2004, deals with retardos, late arrivals. Three late arrivals in one month lead to a notice to the parents. Five in the same month are recorded as one absence.
In Leyendo a Monsiváis (Reading Monsiváis), published by the UNAM in 2013, Linda Egan recalls what friends and interviewers said about the chronicler Carlos Monsiváis. They mentioned the many times he “hacía citas para luego dejarlos plantados o para llegar con varias horas de retraso” (made appointments and then stood them up, or arrived several hours late).
Egan writes that reading such comments made her smile. A column in La Jornada in 2020 noted that despite his lateness, Monsiváis kept all his friends and working relationships.
The Diccionario del español de México of El Colegio de México defines inglés as belonging to England, originating there or related to it. Its one example for this sense is puntualidad inglesa, English punctuality.
The same dictionary defines tolerancia as the difference allowed in fulfilling something agreed. Its example: “La tolerancia es de diez minutos” (The tolerance is ten minutes).
In January 2025, Expansión reported that Cirium had named Aeroméxico “la aerolínea global más puntual del 2024” (the most punctual global airline of 2024), with 86.70 percent of its flights on time. In February 2026, Uno TV headlined: “Aeroméxico, la aerolínea más puntual del mundo por segundo año consecutivo” (the most punctual airline in the world for the second year in a row). (Video in Spanish.)
According to Expansión, Aeroméxico had the most complaints about delayed flights in 2022. The magazine reports that the company carried out more than 3,000 training sessions for its staff.
In December 2025, the governor of Jalisco, Pablo Lemus, and the mayor of Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, Gerardo Quirino Velázquez, led the inauguration of Line 4 of the light rail. The mayor arrived late. The inaugural train left without him, La Razón reported. (Video in Spanish.)
He shared the video on his official social media with a joke: “¡No se preocupen, mi gente! Pasa cada 9 minutos” (Do not worry, my people! It comes every 9 minutes).
Article 27 of Mexico’s Social Security Law lists what is excluded from the wage base for social security contributions. Section VII names “los premios por asistencia y puntualidad” (bonuses for attendance and punctuality), as long as each does not exceed ten percent of the wage base.
In a criterion reported in January 2025, the social security institute IMSS stated that such bonuses must be conditioned on “asistencia perfecta o puntualidad” (perfect attendance or punctuality). It was aimed at bonuses paid without these conditions.