The Spanish defence ministry has put out to tender the contract to provide catering services on the air force's planes used to transport members of the government and royal family. The contract, which includes items like wine, whisky and aperitifs, is worth €40,000 a year (£34,000; $45,000), twice the current contract.
The request for bids published by the Public Sector Contracting Platform, consulted by Europa Press, is to provide "miscellaneous" products for planes of the air force's 45th Group. The planes in question are the Falcon 900 (T.18) and the Airbus A310 (T.22) available to Spanish authorities.
The contract specifies the brands for the products to be provided and breaks down the prices. It says, however, that if the stated products are unavailable, others of equivalent quality can be offered instead, although the air force won't pay extra. Besides the wine, whisky and aperitifs, the list includes different soft drinks, beers, coffee, butter pastries, stuffed olives, almonds, pickled mussels, octopus in Galician sauce, cockles, sardines in olive oil, anchovies, ventresca and clams.
In terms of the specific brands, the wine list, for example, names a variety of cellars with prices of up to €30 per bottle. The plans will also be stocked with other alcoholic drinks like brandy, spirits, orujo, patxaran, vodka, gin and rum.
Whoever wins the contract will have to deliver any products to the 45th Group's air base in Torrejón de Ardoz near Madrid within 24 hours of them being ordered. When making its decision, the ministry will consider the ability to respond to "urgent or exceptional" orders within at most four hours "independent of [it] being at the weekend or on a public holiday".
The contract also states that the company "will make an effort for there to be stability in the workforce and for variations in its composition being isolated cases and based on justified reasons." Similarly, it outlines obligations with regards to negotiating and paying employees' salaries, the granting of permission and licences, social security and health and safety.