Flybondi Founder Leaves Argentina, Calling Return of Peronism “a Cancer”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – British entrepreneur Julián Cook, founder of the low-cost airline Flybondi, announced that he will leave Argentina after Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner’s victory in the presidential elections: “Cristina has returned”.

“One day Argentina will emerge from Peronism, which is a cancer that has gradually destroyed the country for decades, but today I do not know how Flybondi will persist with this government,” said Cook in a group in WhatsApp “Entrepreneurs for change,” according to La Nación newspaper.

“I have resigned as CEO and will return to London in December. I’m still on the board, so I’m going to follow Flybondi and the country’s next steps, but from a distance,” added the British entrepreneur to his Argentinian peers in the chat group.

In this forum in support of Mauricio Macri, Cook recalled his arrival in Argentina: “I decided to move from London to Buenos Aires in 2016. I raised US$75 million to launch Flybondi. Today we have flown two million passengers, 400,000 traveled for the first time in their lives by plane, the road was difficult with an exchange rate that increased from 16 to 60 pesos, bearing in mind that 70 percent of our costs are in dollars.”

“Unfortunately, Macri’s government stayed midway in many respects, it failed to restructure Aerolíneas Argentinas, which suffered a US$680 million loss in 2018. A shame, when the country has a poverty rate of 30 percent,” he criticized.

Cook expressed his gratitude for his stay in Argentina: “My stay was intense, I learned a lot and we achieved a lot, but today I have the feeling, like many others, that we are going to return to the previous situation. It was a pleasure to live here, that’s why I’m sorry to leave, but I don’t have any other option.”

In the afternoon, Flybondi announced that it had requested Cook to resign from his position on the company’s board of directors.

Source: TN