(Translated by me)
The purchase of the two used Airbus A310-300 by the gobierment has turned in to a headache to the Air Force. As months go by, the aircraft, that should finally put an end to the never ending stops during long presidential flights dont arrive.
Last august, Chile had everything arranged with Air India, but the deal was ended when a Chinese buissness man, with cash in hand offered 104 millions and a fast end to the deal to the Indian Carrier, leaving Chile with nothing to do but to return to window shoping (got that expression right?)
This is just a small proof of a ever increasing market of quick negotiations where the one that blinks losses. "You may have the money, but if a arab Sheikh or an asian buissness man comes with cash, he will buy faster than you" (not sure if I translated that last part right)
...
According to Boeing, in the next 20 years there will be a demand for more than 28.600 commercial aircraft, incluiding cargo and passengers
...
"[...] Evaluation can take up to 3 years. The difficulty in the process of aquiring a presidential aircraft is that goberments have certain needs that are not included in the original models, like rooms, offices or conference rooms, etc. Every goberment decides what aircraft they need and for what they need it. And according to that, they are buid or modified, that that clearly takes a long time" explains the FACh's commision in charge of the adquisition "That means that there will be a window for other costumers to enter negotiations, like it happened to Chile last year"
Finally we must remember that the evaluation process for this kind of spending can last from 2 to 3 yeas, making imposible to negotiatiate in same conditions as a other costumers that don't need to much burocratic paperwork
[End]
Soo... in conclusion, Chile is stuck with the 707. The news has won some importance since not long ago (a month?) the 707 carring president Michele Bachelet to China (flying throw Europe and Asia, since the aircraft was in no condition of doing a flight over the pacific), had to make an emergency landing on Brasil, when one of the engines failed, forcing the aircraft to return to Chile for maintenaice and forcing the president to make the flight in a Gulftream IV and the rest of the committee to fly a day later on the 707.
Sorry for the bad english but I don't get much practice anymore, leaving this forum as the only normal moment to practice writing
BTW: The sources that said that the FACh was aquiring the old Luftwaffe A310 have prooven to be just specualtion, to the moment false (The Chilean press has proven to be not very reliable with aviation topics)
The photo is really sad, but it makes me laught (maybe since I don't like the president, but I don't think it was that)
