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López Obrador wants to sell the presidential plane to Argentina

2022-06-09T19:47:43.568Z


The Mexican president says that he does not rule out giving the aircraft to the government of Alberto Fernández with future payments. The offer sounds unattainable for the Argentine Executive


The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with the Mexican presidential plane, on July 27, 2020. Presidency (Cuartoscuro)

In a new chapter on the uncertain fate of Mexico's presidential plane, Andrés Manuel López Obrador said this Thursday that he had offered it to Argentina.

The Government of Alberto Fernández took out a tender last April to replace the Tango 01, one of the emblematic pieces of the Argentine presidential air fleet.

Upon learning of this, the Mexican president, who has spent three and a half years without knowing what to do with the aircraft that his predecessors bought and used, has offered it to him.

“The capacity has already been exhausted, the useful life of the Argentine presidential plane, so we sent them to say: 'there it is, take our plane.'

In addition, it is a friendly government”, he commented this Thursday at the daily morning conference.

The biggest problem is the difference in numbers: Argentina plans to use up to 20 million dollars,

Mexico's presidential plane has been circling aimlessly since December 2018.

The ship was acquired for 218 million dollars in 2012 by the Government of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012).

It arrived in the country in 2016 during the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), who used it for two years until leaving office.

When López Obrador took power, he announced that he would not use it and, instead, would sell it.

Given the lack of buyers, he held a symbolic raffle, where the winners won millionaire prizes, but not the plane itself.

The aircraft, a luxurious Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, became a stone in the shoe of the López Obrador Administration.

He has been out of government service for more than three years, and the Mexican president, who flies almost every day, travels by choice on commercial airlines.

To avoid a meaningless spill, in March of this year the Mexican government announced that it would rent it for events, weddings and 15-year parties.

The offer becomes laughable when seeing the difference in budgets managed by the two governments, which could come closer with a payment plan, according to the Mexican president.

“Our plane has an appraisal of 110 million dollars, and they reserved 30 million dollars.

We still do not rule out that they can give the 30, and then pay the rest on time.

But they are one of those operations or businesses from the pharaonic era, ”López Obrador said this Thursday.

Purchased in 1992 during the presidency of Carlos Menem, the Tango 01 became an icon of the excesses of that ultra-liberal period in Argentina.

The $66 million paid by the Argentine state was then considered an excess, at a time when the economy was barely recovering from the hyperinflation of 1989.

The then president of Argentina, Néstor Kirchner, gets off the presidential plane Tango 01 in Bolivia, on July 22, 2004. DADO GALDIERI (AP)

Over the years, the Boeing 757-200 of the Argentine fleet has become a serious problem.

It has not flown since 2016, but it costs the State $200,000 a year, just to prevent its deterioration from being irreversible.

President Mauricio Macri tried to sell it when he took office in 2015. The plan was to invest up to 50 million dollars in a new aircraft, a sum that became increasingly unattainable as economic problems added up.

Without an operational presidential plane, he moved around the world on commercial and chartered flights, the same as his successor, Alberto Fernández.

The fleet of the Casa Rosada today only has two small planes for internal flights.

In December of last year, Fernández signed a cooperation agreement with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to assist him in the process of technical recovery of the Tango 01. The necessary arrangements include a complete recycling of the engines and trains. of landing, in addition to a costly reconfiguration of all computer systems.

The repair bill amounts to between 15 and 20 million dollars.

The ICAO then recommended that the Casa Rosada use that amount to purchase a new aircraft, delivering the old Tango 01 as part of the payment.

The Mexican offer may sound tempting, but unattainable for Argentina, especially since it would not be able to use the old presidential plane as a bargaining chip.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-06-09

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