Bragança-Portimão air link remains firmly on ground
A Portuguese government cabinet resolution has rescheduled the multi-annual costs of the Bragança-Portimão air link, in order to pay compensation to operator Sevenair, but the carrier and Cascais local authority “are not taking any chances on when the service might be resumed”.
According to the resolution published in the official government gazette Diário da República, the “multi-annual costs arising from the concession contract for the provision of scheduled air services on the Bragança/Vila Real/Viseu/Cascais/Portimão route” have been reprogrammed.
Yet the Trás-os-Montes/Algarve regional airline continues to be disrupted by restrictions (the impounding of a plane) imposed on March 3 by Cascais municipal company Dinâmica, due to non-payment of an alleged debt owed by Sevenair.
A previous resolution from 2018 authorised the annual costs of the concession of scheduled air services between Bragança and Portimão until 2022, with a maximum overall amount of €10.4 million, but due to the delay in the tender, another resolution from July 2023 reprogrammed the multi-annual costs from 2020 to 2024.
“Although the concession period ended on 28 February 2024, the expenditure relating to the figure certified by the Inspectorate-General of Finance (IGF) for the fourth and final year of the concession remains to be processed,” reads the new resolution, approved on Monday by the Cabinet.
The payment, “in accordance with the contractual provisions, can only be made after the exact amount of compensation due has been calculated, to be certified by the IGF,” the document adds.
Last October, Sevenair “presented the financial execution report for the fourth and final year of the concession” and the IGF “certified the compensatory allowance on January 31 this year, which was approved by the secretary of state for the Treasury and Finance on February 10”.
Since, according to the resolution, “there is still expenditure to be made under the aforementioned concession contract, which will only be realised” during 2025, the government decided to reschedule multi-annual costs, setting them at €2.589 million for 2023 (in the previous resolution there were plans for €3.25 million), €656,510 in 2024 (there were 650,000) and €660,455 in 2025 (with no funds foreseen).
The resolution now published sets the 2022 expenditure at €2.593 million , and maintains the charges of €1.95 million in 2021 and 2020, as well as revoking the initially planned €2.6 million in 2019 and €325,000 in 2018.
According to an official Sevenair source, the amount of overdue compensation is €700,000, related to expenses in the “last quarter of 2023”.
This has been an agonising process: in October, the company halted the regional air link at the end of a second direct contract due to a delay in finalising the international public tender, justifying it with a state debt of around €3.8 million, but resumed operations in February after receiving half of the amount owed.
However, days later, on 3 March, the plane making the regional connection was grounded at the Cascais Municipal Aerodrome due to an alleged debt related to handling fees owed to Cascais Dinâmica.
At issue is a disagreement over an alleged debt of handling fees totalling €107,000 plus VAT (or a debt of €132,471.95, according to the municipality) that Cascais Dinâmica is demanding, but which the carrier considers “not to be due”.
In a statement, Sevenair said that it has questioned the National Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC) about the legality of the assistance fee when it operates on a ‘self-handling basis’ with a company it owns, but the regulator concluded that the fee “is payable by ground handling service providers or air carriers with a licence for self-handling on a ground handling basis”.
“At ANAC, we pledged the money that the state owes us, [to Cascais Dinâmica] they said yes, then they came to say that they don’t want it after all, they want the assignment of credits, in other words they don’t want anything,” said the head of Sevenair, assuring that the head of the local council told him “that he didn’t want the company to operate there [in Tires]”, and to try to “find another aerodrome”.
The airline’s source doesn’t know when the regional link could be resumed and admitted that “it’s not out of the question to fly to Portela” (Lisbon’s main airport), although that decision also depends on the government.
The mayor of Cascais, Carlos Carreiras (PSD), lamented to Lusa that the company is “permanently changing what has been agreed”, namely in relation to the ‘pledge agreement’ of the money to be received from the state, and that it invokes “at the last minute a handling fee that was not chargeable”, without “ever having questioned it” previously.
For the mayor, the company “doesn’t want to fulfil the contract it has with the government” and “is finding ways not to fulfil it, but to blame others” and, for this reason, the aircraft won’t operate “until they pay up or until they sign the agreement” that they “committed to at the meeting with ANAC”.
The head of Sevenair disputed the fact that he doesn’t intend to fulfil the contract, because if if that was the case, he says he wouldn’t have re-tendered for the regional air link: “If I didn’t want to do [the link], I wouldn’t do it, I don’t need excuses,” he told Lusa.
As all this seemingly goes round and round, one thing that isn’t is the Bragança-Portimão air link, something that was a boon to the business community.
Source material: LUSA
