Ex-minister is ‘cava socialist’

24 June 2004

MADRID – A former Socialist minister was Thursday embroiled in an embarrassing row after she complained there was no cava on an Iberia flight.

Cristina Alberdi, who is now president a leading women’s rights group in Madrid, the Council Against Domestic Violence, wrote a letter to the head of Iberia Airlines complaining there was no bottle of cava available on a flight.

The letter was leaked to the Spanish daily El Mundo, prompting accusations that Alberdi was a “cava socialist”.

Alberdi was the former social affairs minister, under the government of former Socialist prime minister Felipe Gonzalez.

In the letter, sent to the president of Iberia, Alberdi complained that the airline does not provide the service which they claimed to offer to fliers.

She complained about not having a bottle of cava on a flight between Valencia and Madrid on 27 April.

Alberdi was travelling in tourist class when she and a friend asked for sandwiches and two bottles of cava, but were said they could only have one bottle.

The president Iberia Airlines, Fernando Conte, promised an investigation to discover how the letter was leaked to the media.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news