The Tango-01 presidential plane.
The national government issued a statement in response to a recent piece published on the British tabloid “The Sun”, and assured that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will fly in a private plane on her next tour to avoid a potential impounding of the official presidential plane by vulture funds.
In a written statement signed by the Presidential spokesman, Oscar Parrilli, the Government explains that “they were presented with six offers, all of them of very similar value, and decided to hire Chapman Freeborn, a British company operating from the Gatwick Airport in England, because it was the most convenient from an operational, economic and financial point of view.”
The company had already been hired in the past by the Presidential office in 2010 and 2011 for the President’s travels to Guyana, Madrid, Paris, Barcelona and Cannes.
In the same statement, Parrilli details that “the total cost of the operation is $880,000 dollars, which includes all costs and expenditures of a trip to four different countries, and is close to 20 percent higher that the cost of using the Tango-01.”
The Sun had recently published a story detailing an “ultra secret arrangement” to hire a luxury plane from a British company for her tour to the United Arab Emirates, scheduled to begin next Sunday.
buenosairesherald.com