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    The Aviation Advocacy Blog

    A cornucopia of news, opinion, views, facts and quirky bits that need to be talked about. Join our community and join in the conversation on all matters aviation. The blog includes our weekly round-up of the bits of European aviation you may otherwise have missed – That Was The Week That Was

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That Was The Week That Was 20-24 November 2023

Don’t Cry for Him, Argentina

Everything has an aviation angle, if only you look hard enough.  Or, sometimes, not even all that hard at all.  Take, by way of example, the recent presidential election in Argentina.  As you will no doubt know, Javier Milei was elected.  Yes, I realise that the election was last Sunday, so strictly, not really part of this week, the week that was, but to be fair, in Europe, we woke up on Monday to the news of the result.

This has provoked a number of reactions.  My favourite is a game where you have to guess what his profession might be.  Sadly, drummer in a 1980s pub band, and goalkeeper for a lower league side are both taken, because they are true.  You might be tempted to go with a hard man in a film about Naples.  Or what about the vet your dog refuses to be seen by?  Your thoughts in this regard are very welcome.

But, and this is important, President-elect Milei has an aviation connection too.  Of course he does.

First, he was once a speaker at the World Airport Lawyers Association meeting, held in Buenos Aries in 2013.   In his capacity as a professor of economics – admit it, you were never going to guess that one, were you? – he presented a mathematical formula to show how airport concession contracts could be renegotiated.  I am yet to find an airport that has used his formula, but am always open to hearing from those that have.

Secondly, as you may know, he is a radical economist, more Thatcherite than Mrs Thatcher – who is his favourite politician despite his view that Argentina should take back the Malvena/Falkland Islands – and he is very keen to sell off as many state-owned assets as he can.  That includes Aerolineas Argentina (again, I note, wearily).  And, just because you are radical, does not mean you cannot have a cunning plan.  Maybe this is his…

On hearing news of the intended privatisation of the airline Pablo Biró, the pilots’ union leader said, and I am not making this up: ‘If he wants to take Aerolíneas, he will have to kill us.  And when I say kill, I mean literally: he will have to take dead bodies and I’ll sign up first.’  Now that you could sell tickets to.  They would be queueing up around the block to watch this fight.  There is your financial deficit sorted.  Snr Biró said his fighting words with brio.  And, given how many pilots Aerolineas Argentina carries on its books, it will run and run.  Perhaps like the ink in Snr Biró’s pen.

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