Aerolineas Argentinas resumes international flights

International flights by state-run carrier Aerolineas Argentinas resumed Monday after a weekend disruption over a labor dispute, officials said. The government of President Cristina Kirchner resolved the airline's impasse with the technician's union by ordering the Air Force to take control of air operations. The move is not unprecedented, as the Air Force controlled air traffic operations up to 2007. Flights to destinations like Rome, Miami, and Auckland/Sydney that had been canceled Sunday were re-scheduled for Monday, an airline spokesperson told AFP. The Sunday protest was called because Aerolineas Argentinas planes were not meeting safety requirements, and the airline had not been investing enough in plane maintenance, said Ricardo Cirielli, the head of the technician's union. Cirielli said his technicians were being pressured to sign off on airplanes that did not meet all security requirements. Transportation Secretary Juan Pablo Schiavi said Monday that the disruption resulted in "a loss of $20 million" for the company. Aerolineas Argentinas has been in state hands since 2008, when it was expropriated from a Spanish group. At the time the airline was nearly $900 million in debt. The company lost $180 million this year in flight cancelations following the eruption of a volcano in neighboring Chile in June, the Pagina/12 daily reported on Sunday. Ash from the volcano disrupted flights across much of South America. The airline has also seen fuel prices increase by $140 million compared to the previous year, the newspaper said.