The Air Force Renzi, as it has now been called the most discussed aircraft in charge of the Prime Minister, has come to an end after having flown just a couple of times. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte at the G7 used one of the old Airbuses of the fleet of state aircraft that are housed at the 31st Wing of the Ciampino Air Force (RM). This choice probably turned the spotlight on another Airbus, the mammoth four-engine “thrown” in a hangar in a remote area of Fiumicino Airport. Nobody wanted to use this aircraft as it was considered an exaggeration both for its physical size and for the huge outlay of public money to keep it in operational life.
It was chartered for 8 years at 96 installments for a total of 167 million euros. 75 have already been paid (50 in installments plus 25 for a one-off payment at the time of signing). The device has been out of production since 2011, and was worth 27 million euros at the time of purchase. In addition, beyond the total cost, the adaptation works were planned, given that the internal configuration is that of an airliner, for a ceiling of 20 million euros ”.
The accounts are soon made. Just subtract the 75 millions already paid to 187 (167 + 20), and here is a savings to 112 million. Although at Palazzo Chigi they do not exclude having to pay the penalty for the early termination of the contract (42 million euros) for the Airbus a340-500, while Toninelli is sure: "We should not do it, the 24 article of the supply contract speak clearly ".
With a letter, Luigi Di Maio and Elisabetta Trenta asked the commissioners Alitalia to resolve the contract that includes four very high spending items: first the leasing, then the maintenance (31 million), the handling (12 million) and pilots training (almost 4 million) ".
It's money, explains Toninelli, “that doesn't even go to Alitalia, our national carrier, but almost entirely for the benefit of Etihad, the owner of the Airbus 340-500. We are talking about a turbofan four-engine that came out of the market in 2011 and therefore outdated, obsolete ”. An aircraft "so big that it only has to land at Fiumicino, not Ciampino, which is the airport where state flights normally stop" adds the Minister of Transport. A "gift only for Etihad that certainly did not shine as a partner of Alitalia and that moreover will take back the aircraft on the deadline date of the bloodletting" concluded Toninelli on Facebook.
But immediately and very hard, Matteo Renzi's response to Twitter comes out: "When they come back on buffalo as" Renzi's plane "means that they are desperate: that plane was not for me but for the international business missions. I've never set foot there. Di Maio wrote a decree that will fire 80 thousand people: talk about that, not the hoaxes ".
Etihad has delivered theAirbus 340-500 in January of 2016, after repeated interventions of conversion and retraining of the vehicle that made the first flight on 31 March 2006. The justification of the operation is explained in the document with the need to comply with the legislation "ETOPS", The limitations of commercial airplanes when they fly over the oceans.
The four-engine turbofan, withdrawn from the market in the 2011, immediately renamed Air Force Renzi, is so big that it has to land at Fiumicino and not a Ciampino, where the 31 ° flock of the Air Force operates and where the state planes are parked.
THEAirbus 340-500 with the insignia of the Italian republic, after a year and a half of technical taxiing and training of personnel, he made his debut in a trip to United States and in Canada of April 2017 with Paolo Gentiloni Prime Minister. Basically: for one fifth of the rental period, Italy paid Etihad without using the Renzi Air Force. Another flight was made for a mission by the undersecretary Ivan Scalfarotto a Cuba. The former premier has always denied crazy expenses for the Airbus, trusting on the confidentiality in the Defense-Etihad-Alitalia triangulation. But already in the 2016, however, an "additional note" of the ministry of Roberta Pinotti reported an increase of 622 percent on the 2015 of the "external functions"For state flights.
It remains the umpteenth mystery of the document called CCXLV which concerns the "report on the state of implementation of the modernization and renewal programs for vehicles, plants and systems". It was delivered to Parliament without, incidentally, the part where the actual expenses for the Renzi Air Force are found.
For a strange "oversight"This piece ended up in another document that has nothing to do with it and which refers to the modernization of the infrastructures. The monoco document appears on the portals of Camera e Senate.
At this point criminal or non-criminal is really the case of "go back" and terminate the contract.