For now, neither Javier Milei nor his sister Karina wish to use the planes of the presidential air fleet in order to show gestures of austerity that make the ongoing adjustment less unpleasant.
But the Secretary General of the Presidency does not hide at this time her discomfort due to a million-dollar debt that she will have to face in her portfolio for
the use that Cristina Kirchner gave to YPF planes to travel last year to the Patagonian town of El Calafate.
According to some estimates from the aeronautical sector, the General Secretariat of the Presidency
should face payments of about $200 million
that, in truth,
should have been canceled by the previous administration.
These are the operating and fuel costs demanded by
the rental of two aircraft belonging to the
majority state oil company: a Learjet 60 and an Embraer Praetor 550.
The latter, larger and acquired in 2023, was the former president's favorite.
After deciding not to use the ARG 01, the plane that Alberto Fernández bought for about 25 million dollars, for example to travel to the Davos Economic Summit, the Milei argue that they must show the austerity that they advocate in the use of the planes. public resources.
According to a collaborator of the President's sister, she has questioned Cristina for using the oil company's aircraft, the rental of which, in the end, must be paid for by the Executive.
For
Karina Milei, the former president chose to rent this service because of the "distrust" she had towards the Air Force pilots
who operated the official units that used to transport her to the South.
Former president Cristina Kirchner.
Cristina's distrust of the Armed Forces pilots would have been caused by two "accidental" journeys that had them as protagonists: the first occurred in January 2015, when, while on a tour to China, the Tango 01 stopped in Morocco and on the approach On the landing strip there was a strong maneuver that caused the then president some anxiety.
The most recent took place in mid-2021 when the then Vice tried to travel to Río Gallegos in a Learjet 35 - a smaller aircraft used to verify radio aids - but before takeoff he got off dissatisfied because he had not been notified of a previous stopover and when
he observed the difficulties of the military pilots in "closing" the door of the small unit.
After that incident, the former president began to use the planes of the oil company
managed at that time by La Cámpora more frequently.
There is no conclusive data on the use that the former president made of these aircraft: a request for access to public information made by this newspaper to the previous Government counted,
between January 2022 and November 2023, 17 trips, 1 with the Learjet 60 and 16 with the Embraer 550.
But an investigation by the newspaper La Nación revealed that there were 59 transfers that Cristina made on YPF aircraft during her tenure as vice president.
Paradoxically, the current leadership of the General Secretariat is studying handing over the operation of the presidential air fleet to the Armed Forces and, in this sense, Commodore Fabián Barbieri, whom his critics remember as Mauricio Macri's official, takes flight to remain in office. left Tango 01 out of service - "on the ground" -. The plane purchased in 1992 by Carlos Menem ended up being scrapped and in 2023 auctioned at a ridiculous price.
On paper, the General Directorate of Logistics, which is in charge of the official planes, is still in charge of the lawyer Florencia Gastaldi, an official who had been working since the management of Unión por la Patria.
On December 15, presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni announced that the Government decided to sell the two YPF planes, arguing that "they were used, almost exclusively, for politics."
More than a month after the administration began, it is still not known whether this operation will actually be carried out.