As TAP workers meet again today to discuss festive strike action, the national airline is understood to be negotiating a €250 million bailout to see it through the controversial privatisation process.
According to Público, the funds are needed urgently.
It is perhaps the understatement of the year to describe an airline that has suffered a series of strikes, the cancellation of hundreds of flights, and repeated media reports of technical faults to its aircraft.
TAP is understood to be appealing to a consortium of banks, including Caixa Geral de Depósitos.
While the company was unwilling to tell Público how its bailout negotiations were going, the paper outlined its parlous situation.
“The carrier had good results in the first period of this year, but the subsequent months brought problems that are far from being resolved”.
The first was the “fall of demand from Brazil” as a result of the World Cup which led to a dramatic drop in ticket prices. Then came the “long hot summer” which should have been TAP’s best period, but ended up a complete nightmare, characterised by lack of staff, lack of planes and technical inefficiency.
It reached the point that Economy minister Pires de Lima declared TAP’s problems were “bad for Portugal’s image abroad”.
The government’s subsequent decision to sell-off the airline led to new staff difficulties which are still playing out.
The airline’s syndicate of unions is today reported to be considering whether it should take legal action over the government’s civil requisition seeking to thwart plans for a general strike between Saturday December 27 and Tuesday December 30.
Meantime, the Christmas message sent out by TAP’s president Fernando Pinto was dire (see: https://stg.portugalresident.com/tap-christmas-strike-%E2%80%9Ccould-ruin-the-airline%E2%80%9D).
The bottom line is that TAP needs a Christmas miracle.
TAP prays for a miracle
