Argentine pilot denounces deregulation during in-flight announcement

[sandensea]

Passengers on Argentina's national airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas, were treated yesterday to an unconventional in-flight announcement by the pilot, who took the opportunity to denounce ongoing airline deregulation by President Mauricio Macri.

The pilot, who was not identified, said in the announcement that: "What concerns us today is that the Ministry of Transportation is promoting an increasingly deregulated aviation in the country, with less oversight, less training for pilots, and less control over maintenance."

He also noted that air routes "are being increasingly opened to foreign firms, thereby affecting our work."

This referred to Macri's push to open the nation's air routes to private, low-cost carriers, which began in 2016 with the purchase of his family's failing charter airline (MacAir) by Colombia's Avianca in exchange for access to local routes.

The move triggered a federal investigation, including a June 7, 2017, raid on the Casa Rosada - the first such incident in the presidential office building's 132-year history.

The case, like numerous other corruption probes against Macri, remains stalled in court.

Flying high

The largest such firm to take advantage of this policy, Flybondi, was granted use of an Air Force base in El Palomar, west of Buenos Aires, by decree on June 26, 2017 - two weeks after the Casa Rosada raid by prosecutors.

Flybondi, established just nine months earlier with no capital and no planes, has quickly grown to become the nation's third-largest airline. It's officially owned by a French expat named Richard Gluzman, a business partner of Macri's chief domestic policy adviser, Mario Quintana.

But in just seven months of operations Flybondi has already had numerous safety incidents, including emergency landings due to overheating motors and detached parts. A number of other takeoffs have been cancelled outright without explanation, leaving passengers stranded.

Its record thus far, as well as Macri's deregulatory push, has drawn comparisons to the 1990s, when similar policies led to an unprecedented number of safety incidents as well as the two deadliest air travel incidents in Argentine history: the 1997 Austral Airlines crash, which killed 74; and the 1999 LAPA crash, which killed 65.

Both airlines were private; LAPA ceased operations, and Austral was nationalized in 2008.

Pablo Biró of the Airline Pilots Association (APLA) is concerned it could happen again. "That airline has $6,000 in declared capital, two old planes (12 and 17 years), and a rusty old workshop not fit to repair cars," he said.

"But no one will stop this, until there's a catastrophe."

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagina12.com.ar%2F128473-su-atencion-por-favor

A Flybondi aircraft being towed from the runway by baggage trucks on July 5 - one of several safety incidents since the low-cost start-up, linked to a close Macri adviser, began operations just seven months ago.

[Judi Lynn]

1. The fascists are extorting the people of Argentina, while also endangering their lives.

Regulations are put in place precisely because the people learned the hard way what a hell is made of every day life for the public when the businesses make their own rules and completely ignore public safety, and respect for life altogether.

For Macri to throw regulations away as soon as he can, to bankroll his family's 2nd or 3rd rate airline business with a buyout which endangers Argentinians is criminal. To throw away the law to protect the citizens is morally and legally depraved, it's murderous.

By the time a professional pilot feels driven to make a public announcement as this one did, putting his entire livelihood in danger, in order to inform some small part of the population, things are in dire straights, and this measure is taken by someone who seems to almost feel hope is futile, by risking everything.

Things are at the point now that it would be far better for the country to give these criminals the money they demand outright if they will only get out of the airline business, and move out of Argentina altogether. This would at least protect future airline fatalities and the destruction of so many lives which would be savaged by the needless deaths of their loved ones.

The trouble with fascist governments is that they are never satisfied with the initial exploitation, theft of the economy, they continue to sink to new deaths in relentless search for all kinds of additional wealth they can strip from an economy, as the bleed the country dry. They will NEVER be satisfied with their opening moves of criminality, their appetites continue to grow as they seek to devour everything in their line of sight, leaving nothing behind them for future generations.

One brave pilot. Without a doubt he will be dealt with severely. Hope he and his loved ones can escape before Macri's henchmen round them all up.

Hope the story of what he has said will continue to grow, to spread, until enough people realize what he is saying about them, their world, and their futures. They need to be awakened now, in case they haven't gotten the picture yet, or sufficiently.

Alarming step to take for a man who has spent years in training for his proficiency in his career. It wasn't undertaken lightly.

Thank you, sandensea.

[sandensea]

2. Well said as always.

If more Argentine voters would remember their recent history, instead of obsessing over Bolivian immigrants and public assistance to the poor (both of which they resent), dog-whistling con men like Macri could never get elected.

I was there (in Buenos Aires) when the LAPA disaster took place. It was a miracle more people weren't killed, seeing as that plane took off from an airport not far from several densely populated residential areas.

The crash was pretty much the last nail in Menem's political coffin, as voters quickly connected his laissez-faire, anything goes policies to the tragedy (especially after a similar one just two years earlier).

I fear Macri's games with these fly-by-night low-cost airlines will lead to something similar - especially those brigands at Flybondi, which fly really low - and constantly - over the western suburbs around El Palomar because their pilots are too poorly trained to approach properly.

Cheeto's push to privatize air traffic control - to sell to friends and/or silent partners, no doubt - is even more worrisome. I'm sure he hasn't given up on it (money, money!).

[Judi Lynn]

3. Furious flames from that wrecked airliner, wild fire, those firemen were heroic staying right there.

The heat from the jet fuel had to be astonishing.

So with just enough time for the next load of grifters to ooze back into office, the very same grifting opportunities open up for THEM, and they are only too happy to exploit them, leaving no molecule of griftable wealth behind.

So many people remain blind to what motivates corrupt politicians, and it appears the list grows longer each time a new regime not only seizes power, using all the same ploys as the previous ones, but starts looking for ways to expand the corruption.

I don't think new voters who haven't seen what happens when things have been less regulated, can grasp what is at stake. They have to be exploited themselves, shocked themselves, degraded and perhaps harmed themselves, as the older and wiser people endure it all over again, before they realize how deadly the games are for those without political right-wing, greedy allies in high places.

I felt startled learning people can look at the low flying airplanes, see their identity, and remember what "low budget" really means before they start crashing, often around the airport. It makes perfect sense that experience teaches the survivors, for sure!

If only more people had the chance to learn from those who have been there more often.

I'll bet you're right to suspect the same catastrophes are on their way. Will be here, too, if the "President" and his dirty Congress worms get their way and allow necessary rules to be destroyed, and everything deregulated, made only to serve as wealth-creating mechanisms for the very few.

So funny that the people molding public perception keep forcing the mass belief that this is a "Christian" approach to life when it's so clear it is the way to murderous greedy self-indulgence at the expense of the great masses of humanity around the world.

The "trickle down" crumbs only trickle down enough to satisfy the greedy mob of politicians who live to take from the poor to hand up to the greediest. Everything else goes to satiate the blobs at the top, as they frolic in their "vomitoria," consuming more than they can really enjoy, but wanting more and more and more forever.