MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

The Argentine airline with no planes and which never flew

A fraud case involving an airline with managers, pilots, stewardesses, cabin crew, mechanics, ground crew, even a passengers complaint office butâ€Â¦which has never taken off nor does it have aircrafts was filed Thursday at the office of an Argentine federal prosecutor in Buenos Aires.

Lineas Aereas Federales S.A., Lafsa, was created in the early years of the Nestor Kirchner administration in an attempt to recover some of the many government owned assets that were privatized under President Carlos Menem and who has been demonized as the culprit of all Argentina's economic evils. According to the solicitor Ricardo Monner Sans the creation of Lafsa has caused losses to the tune of over forty million US dollars to the Argentine Treasury plus the fact that although government financed it is regulated by public law, creating a legal limbo. Lafsa comes under the responsibility of the Federal Planning Ministry headed by Julio De Vido, a close crony of Mr. Kirchner. Monner Sans claims government owned Lafsa has a passengers' complaint office manager, a maintenance manager, in spite it has never taken off or transported a single passenger. A situation which the Buenos Aires press recalls has been repeatedly exposed to no avail until now. According to the claim Lafsa has "ten managers, fourteen pilots and copilots; cabin crew members; ten flight supervisors, twenty aeronautics experts, ten office staff and thirty ramp and ground crew". This means that since the airline was created "over 40 million US dollars have been spent in a company that has provided nothing useful. It flies no planes the company has no planes, and could never get to take off". Areas with managers include: passengers' complaint office; maintenance; personnel, marketing, pilots and copilots; crew cabin and ground operators. Besides all managers are paid in the range of 3.300 US dollars per month plus benefits and expenses, claims Monner Sans. Finally when creating Lafsa all links with government administrative law was eliminated and replaced by public law leaving the government funded company operating out of legal mandatory controls, argues solicitor Monner Sans. Lafsa was originally created to absorb redundant staff from the restructuring of the Argentine air industry, (short in planes and abundant in personnel), when several foreign companies, Spanish and Chilean, took over some local assets. Lafsa, which was supposed to fly mainly to Patagonia, was also mentioned for the possible direct link between the continent and the Falkland Islands, as part of a wider negotiation to increase the number of charter flights to the Islands. However the deal fell through: no air link to the Islands from Argentina; no increase in the number of charter flights to Falklands and the definitive grounding of Lafsa.