Posse analyzes the revival of Cristina's failed plan for Aerolíneas Argentinas

At the end of 2011, Cristina Kirchner attempted to bring about an amendment to the public accounts. “Fine tuning means the renaissance is over,” he put it upon assuming his second term. But the amendment never progressed and was bogged down by some failed initiatives such as registering to voluntarily give up benefits.

As part of this attempt to give some rationality to macroeconomic management, a restructuring plan for Aerolínea Argentinas was announced which included closing expensive international routes to countries “where demand does not justify it”, to resize the company to become a shipping line with some regional operations. . The details were announced at a press conference held by then Planning Minister Julio de Vido with Mariano Ricalde, in charge of the company at the time.

This design presented by Kirchnerism in 2011 has many similarities to the plan that Nicolas Bos is analyzing for the national airline. Since the LPO has been able to rebuild, important axes of that initiative will be implemented in the airline that is still headed by Camporista Fabian Lombardo, Commercial Director of Aerolíneas Argentinas during Alberto's government, who was in charge of the company in the new government.

The plan is to regionalize operations and logistics, limiting themselves to domestic flights and canceling international destinations, as they have just done with the route to New York, as LPO exclusively revealed. In fact, despite the company's denials, the LPO was able to confirm that the route to Rome was “underway”.

Airlines are giving up the route to New York for free and Delta wants to keep it

Lombardo and Pablo Sirianni before him showed that Aerolíneas Argentinas had been maintained on its own resources for a year and that it would therefore not be necessary to privatize it. The Posse team has more information. A source familiar with discussions about the company told LPO: “Airlines are maintained by the work they do with the drainage gap, and if the gap is not there it will be a loss.”

Airlines are maintained by the work they do with the drainage gap, if the gap was not there they would be in deficit.

Since President Milley's idea is to wind down the inventories sometime this year, the Posse team has already decided to privatize the company in whole or in part, so as not to face a deficit when the exchange rate is unified.

Regionalization of the company is another idea aimed at reducing its size and opening it up to private capital. “Dividing it into AeroCuyo, AeroPatagonia, etc…” A source follows negotiations over the fate of the company, which appears in the list of privatizable companies contained in the comprehensive law requested by the government.

The Kirchnerian Church is trying to forget its failed attempt to reform the overall economy. A source close to the former planning minister told LPO: “De Vido would never have designed the dismemberment of airlines. Regionalization is de-nationalization. It is the transfer of the company in many parts.”

The strange thing is that La Cámpora does not claim to be the owner of this plan either. “This was not Ricalde’s plan,” say people close to the current national senator. “Our administration focused its efforts on promoting domestic tourism, a sector with huge potential for the country, which is the exact opposite of canceling international flights.”

The fact is that since the company is still in the hands of managers under Ricaldi and Sirianni, they are eager to find a “business model” that avoids the privatization or dismemberment that Miley and Bossi are promoting.

“We are working to increase the international offer of flights to Miami, Madrid and the Caribbean,” they celebrated in dialogue with the LPO of Aerolíneas, as a way to resist Downsizing They are paid by the Chief of Staff.