TAP president Fernando Pinto (pictured) has called it an “enormous tumult” that will set the financially-haemorrhaging flagship carrier back at least a year and cost “up to a million euros a day in cancellations of reservations”. Economy minister Pires de Lima says the country will not be “held hostage” by trade unions – and the union representing 400 pilots claims both TAP and the government have been “intransigent”.
If newspapers are to be believed, “no one wants this strike” but unless there is an 11th hour agreement, the stoppage is due to bite from midnight on Thursday and continue for the next 10 days.
Whether that leaves passengers brave enough to maintain faith in the troubled airline is what TAP bosses are now scrambling to establish.
Both Expresso and Público have outlined the minimum services as set out by the arbitral court this week: all flights to the Azores are “assured” as well as three flights (back and forth) to Madeira for every day of the strike.
The court also “decided to protect a series of important destinations for TAP,” writes Público – importance being decided on the basis that the countries all “have a strong Portuguese community”. These destinations, all of which are secured one flight a day, include Angola, France, Luxembourg, the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and Italy.
“As regards Mozambique”, this will be assured “three flights during the whole strike period”.
Still uncertain is whether TAP will now start “cancelling” flights due to be affected by the strike and whether this means the airline that declared debts last year of over €85 million will “need to reimburse passengers”.
It is possibly the worst nightmare Fernando Pinto could have imagined in this potentially pivotal pre-privatisation moment.
Talking to RTP after negotiations broke down, Pinto agreed investors would “lose confidence” in the airline that has already been dogged by strike action in the run up to what is a second shot by the government at selling TAP off to the highest bidder.
As national media pointed out recently, the government is already very unlikely to make any money at all from the sell-out. Worse still is the fact that as troubles dog the airline, potential buyers are heading for the hills.
The pilots’ strike centres on demands that pilots be given a shareholding in the business once it is privatised.
Pilots union SPAC is citing an agreement made with the government to this effect.
Columnist Fernanda Cachão writing on the strike, which she called a “form of matricide”, pointed out that each one of the “poor pilots” earns around €8,600 a month, which she claims is a salary “larger than that of a general” and “many times superior to the minimum wage”.
By NATASHA DONN
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
Photo: JOSÉ SENA GOULÃO/LUSA
