Brazil’ aircraft manufacturer Embrear is again resurfacing suspicions regarding the sale of commercial planes to Aerolineas Argentinas involving several million dollars in surcharges. The company informed the US Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, that it is investigating companies from five different countries to which it sold aircraft allegedly in transactions suspicious of irregularities.
Falkland Islands lawmaker Sharon Halford rejected the Argentine proposal of direct flights from Buenos Aires to the Islands saying that “they are not needed” and expressed surprise at the double standard of President Cristina Fernandez administration.
Argentina made a formal proposal to the UK for the establishment of direct flights from Argentina to the Falklands and to resume cooperation in the conservation of fishery resources in the South Atlantic, indicates a release posted on Tuesday in the Argentine Foreign Ministry site.
FOR the Falklands to be short of bananas as a result of Argentina’s bully-boy blockade and trade restrictions is understandable. For Argentina to run out of bananas you’d think would be impossible in a sub-continent which grows millions of them. But a few weeks ago, they had no bananas in Buenos Aires shops. Only the incompetent Argentines could achieve the impossible. It’s not just bananas they are slipping up on.
The apparent change in Argentine policy towards the Falkland Islands by offering three direct flights to the Islands from Buenos Aires instead of cutting the air link with Chile, as had been anticipated, was described by Chilean diplomatic sources as “an attempt to collect international support and look less mean”.
Negotiations must start from a position of trust and “it is hard to trust a Government who so easily break their word, and who deny our right to exist as a people”, said Falklands lawmaker Roger Edwards in response to the announcement by Argentine President Cristina Fernandez on direct air-links to the Falklands.
Falkland Islanders reacted with skepticism and further distrust to the latest announcements by Argentine president Cristina Fernandez regarding air links with Argentina, while Falklands’ elected lawmakers said the proposal was too ‘muddled’ and with errors for the local government to respond.
The UK expects Argentina to honour its commitments under the 1999 agreement allowing for flights to the Falkland Islands from Chile and insisted that any discussions on flights were a matter for the Falkland Islands government.
President Cristina Fernandez said Argentina will seek to re-negotiate the 1999 accord with the UK which allows for a weekly flight connecting the Falklands Islands and Chile, and replace it with three schedules a week but from Buenos Aires and in the country’s flag carrier, Aerolineas Argentinas.
Argentina’s flag carrier ended the last twelve months with a drop in the number of passengers transported, totalling 6.017.886, which is 5.97% less than in 2010. However income from the sale of tickets reached 1.334 billion dollars, which is 14% higher, according to the latest numbers available.