President’s aircraft in Portugal for service
The government will assess if additional works will be carried out on the presidential aircraft to better suit it for transatlantic flights, defence ministry sources revealed on Wednesday.
Currently, the presidential aircraft is in Portugal at the OGMA aerospace company for standard service work necessary after completing 252 months of operations.
A source from the defence ministry told the Cyprus Mail the current efforts are centred on harmonising the aircraft with EU requirements on carrying out works on the navigation instruments and arrival system.
The cost of this is expected to be upwards of €1 million.
The Embraer Legacy was gifted to Cyprus from the Greek air force in 2022, after it was unable to sell it. It thus relieved Greece of the annual €410,000 maintenance works.
According to Politis, which first published the story, the government is seeking to explore the possibility of using the aircraft for transatlantic flights.
The defence ministry confirmed this but said this assessment would follow after the current service works are completed. A decision would be made by the government as a second step.
Currently, the president boards either commercial flights or private jets, director of the president’s press office Victoras Papadopoulos told the Cyprus Mail.
“Every decision is scrutinised by the auditor general,” he specified in a bid to clarify there was no waste of public expenditure.