Union recalls lawsuits could cost TAP between €200-€300 million
Just as Portugal’s flagship airline TAP announces profits for 2024, the national union of civil aviation flight personnel has stressed there are roughly 700 lawsuits ready to go to court – for reinstatement of cabin crew dismissed during the pandemic, and/ or compensation – which will more than wipe them out.
“We currently have 700 more lawsuits in the pipeline; we’re just waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision to become final and, after that happens, we’ll automatically proceed with the court cases,” SNPVAC president Ricardo Penarróias told Lusa today.
According to SNPVAC, the number of cabin crew affected by the Supreme Court’s decision “could be around 2,000” – and could cost the airline between €200 million and €300 million.
At issue is the Supreme Court of Justice’s decision, announced at the end of last year and upheld in the final judgement, over poorly drawn up contracts of cabin crew dismissed as part of the airline’s restructuring plan.
SNPVAC said today that it remains willing to find solutions with the company so as not to take the cases to court, and has already requested a meeting to this end.
“We’re still waiting, and right now, we have, I’d say, 700 crew members” cases that are going to be filed through the union tomorrow,” said Penarróias.
In response to questions sent at the beginning of the year by the PSD parliamentary group, following the news of the Supreme court’s decision, TAP said that, as of that date, it had provisioned “the amount of €37.2 million for the total of ongoing legal actions related to the matter under analysis”.
Following the pandemic and the airline’s restructuring plan (due to make it more attractive for reprivatisation), 1,514 people left the airline between March 2020 and March 2021
By the beginning of this year, however, 925 workers from various professional classes had been rehired, to whom compensation totalling €1.74 million has been paid. ND
Source material: LUSA
