The President requested Argentine Airlines employees to set to work”

Cristina Fernández headed the ceremony of inauguration of a recovered and refurbished hangar at the Metropolitan Airport Jorge Newbery in the city of Buenos Aires where she expressed her support of the company’s administration plan.

 

She said that the most difficult decision she had made during her administration was to re nationalize Argentine Airlines, on July 21.  2008, when she took over a bankrupt, vacuumed Air Company without planes.

 

She recalled "it was a deserted company. It is pretty difficult, she added, to run a company controlled by six Unions with which decisions must be negotiated. It was a difficult economic time and we made the decision of taking over without blaming anyone. The government undertook the responsibility, together with the workers, to rebuild the company with investments.

 

The head of State went over some figures related to the investment made by the government since 2008. She held that no worker was dismissed, that the payroll grew by 8% instead, and that the company shows 40% more of productivity, that the country owns a “flight simulator” once again and that the investment made in equipment was simply millionaire. She added that “competitiveness can not measure itself against workers’ dignity but it must be supplementary, therefore salaries were increased”.

 

She recalled the “APA workers average salary amounts to 11.5 thousand pesos; APTA (technicians) workers cash an average of 16.7 thousand pesos; UPSA workers (hierarchical staff) 21 thousand; crew  members, some 12.7 thousand; pilots (APLA) 37.8 thousand; UALA workers 38 thousand. The Head of State kept on “I say all this because it hurts to see that a blockade left flights unattended, without the catering service”.

 

And added that days ago, the pilot flying a foreign airline told his passengers that the Argentine government was to blame for the lack of the catering service on board that plane. The situation was due to a conflict affecting the catering company in Ezeiza.

 

"I must congratulate the company’s administration though for the achieved connectivity among our compatriots. The company is still defaulting, as most air companies in the world are, but the deficit dropped by 48% and new flights were incorporated to supply the tourist demand; tourism represents almost 7% of GDP.

 

"I appointed Mariano Recalde. The plan submitted last week was elaborated and analyzed with me in Olivos before the announcement. Let’s not get it wrong. I make the decisions by popular vote, said Cristina Fernandez, who added there were covered boycotts and cancelled flights”.

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