By Estrella Gutiérrez
CARACAS, Jan 23 1997 (IPS)

The operations of the VIASA airline working under the Venezuelan flag but controlled by the Spanish company Iberia, were suspended Thursday as a preventative measure while a general assembly decides on the destiny of the company.

This measure was adopted by Venezuelan International Aviation (VIASA) Board of Directors, amidst the tension caused by the political police arrest of two Iberia executives when they were boarding a plane for Madrid Wednesday.

The VIASA president, Jose Campins, said the temporary closure of the company would last until Friday Jan. 31 to allow for a shareholders meeting to discuss the options of the recapitalisation of the company, a controlled closure, or bankrupcy.

Interior minister, Jose Andueza, said Thursday all the Iberia directors “can leave (Venezuela) at any time,” saying the problem with the two executives was simply that they had “missed their flight.”

Meanwhile, Campins classed the taking of the two Iberia officials as an act of “terrorism” and “a full on crash,”as the product of some form of confusion.

Campins presided over the meeting of the VIASA Board of Directors all day Thursday in the hope of heading off the financial crisis of the company – privatised in 1991.

However, this ended in a forced landing Thursday and could mean liquidation if no route is found to take off again.

The cancellation of operations started at 20:00 GMT Thursday (16:00 local time), after a virtual closedown of reservations hours earlier, company directors told IPS.

The initial idea was to defer important decisions until another meeting after the general assembly in late February, but the “politicisation” of the issue of who is responsible for the crisis and the ways out of this meant another meeting was called for within the week.

The two executives being held, Javier Abollado and Juan Vergara, were “intercepted” – according to Andueza speaking in Puerto Ordaz, southeast Venezuela – by members of the political police (DISIP) when they were preparing to board an Iberia flight to Madrid, Wednesday.

The argument was that a legal warrant was about to be issued to block the exit of leading Spanish executives of Iberia and VIASA from the nation. The documents of all the other passengers on the flight were also registered, as it was believed Campins was planning to be on the flight, although in fact it was his wife who was travelling.

Neither of the two junior executives, who had barely been in the country a couple of months, are part of the company’s directing board of the Spanish company. And in their roles as managers of fleet maintenance and ground operations for VIASA, neither could be held responsible in any eventual lawsuit either.

The background to this unfortunate incident was an increasing nervousness between Iberia and its personnel working for VIASA, on the one hand, and the company workers and the Venezuelan government on the other.

The tense situation was due to VIASA’s accumulated debt of between 144 and 188 million dollars depending on the source consulted, and neither Iberia nor the State Venezuelan Investment Fund (FIV) want to risk investing more capital in the venture.

In 1991, Iberia acquired 45 percent of the VIASA shares heading a consortium in which the local Provincial bank bought a further 15 percent. The package cost 145 million dollars, and Iberia is in total control.

The FIV has invested no further capital since Rafael Caldera came to power in 1994, and in fact he rather disassociated the State from the company without dealing with alleged irregularities and the “pillaging” now complained of by the unions and the government.

At present, VIASA has five DC-10’s and five 727’s in a fleet of 12 planes which it has used over the last two years, its payroll includes 2,666 people, and labour costs represent 18 percent of the total company expenditure.

In November, Iberia presented a recovery plan for VIASA which it assured would recover 14 million dollars of benefits in 1997, compared with the 30 million-dollar losses of 1996.

However, the plan was withdrawn a week ago without any alternatives being offered after it was rejected by the FIV and the unions. It was based on nine million dollars of cost-cutting, a reduction in the number of routes covered and an 18 percent reduction in personnel.

In the last few days, Iberia also separated all its offices from VIASA, with which it shared its central office and installations in the Caracas international airport.

Before the two executives were taken, members of the Venezuelan government had already brought the VIASA issue into the political arena, assuring this was due to a “chimba” (badly carried out) privatisation which had handed the company over to the worst possible managers.

Furthermore, Planning Minister Teoforo Petkoff, demanded the Spanish government intervene in the crisis, in order to promote a government to government solution, something rejected in Madrid and also by FIV chief, Alberto Poletto, who insisted not a dollar would go to VIASA before a viable plan was seen.

Iberia stressed that it had been prepared to totally buy out VIASA from the FIV from the beginnin, but a law which blocked air companies from being owned by a majority of foreign capital prevented this from happening, and it was not longer in a situation where it could to this.

For the Spanish company is currently submerged in a salvage plan under European Union supervision, which prevents it from investing any further capital in VIASA and Aerolineas Argentinas, the two companies it bought shares of in its “American adventure.”

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