[ad_1]
TAP’s restructuring plan has not yet been presented (it must be delivered in Brussels before December 10), but the airline continues to “lose weight”, after the aviation crisis, due to the pandemic.
The Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, Pedro Nuno Santos, confirmed this week that the TAP Group will lose another 1,600 workers by the end of the year, which means that – already counting on the approximately 1,000 layoffs foreseen by the handling company Groundforce (in which TAP has a minority stake) – the TAP universe will lose more than 2,800 workers in March next year.
In a hearing at the parliamentary committee on the Economy, Innovation, Public Works and Housing, Pedro Nuno Santos admitted that it is not possible to “artificially maintain a dimension that does not have access to the market in which we operate today”, highlighting that the restructuring process of TAP implies this “resizing” of the company.
It should be remembered that this hearing took place after the presentation by the Government of the preliminary version of the State Budgets for 2021, where the State is expected to ‘exhaust’ the 1,200 million euros of the loan for TAP from 2020, other 500 million in loans are still ‘reserved’ for next year (see pages 10-19).
Heard by SOL, TAP’s most representative unions admit that this announcement is not surprising, especially since, at this moment, there is nothing new with respect to what had already been announced. Henrique Louro Martins, president of the National Union of Civil Aviation Flight Personnel (SNPVAC), says that “these numbers had already been announced by Antonoaldo Neves [anterior presidente da comissão executiva da TAP]. From our point of view, the restructuring, as far as workers are concerned, is done. Of these announced figures, 1,200 are cabin crew. It’s already a very large number, isn’t it? “, Question. José Sousa, general secretary of the Aviation and Airport Workers Union (Sitava), also revealed that he resigned from these layoffs, at a stage in which the company operates only 30%. “This is the workers’ restructuring plan. What is being done, at the moment, is trying to understand what the market has to offer in the coming years, to try to make the company sustainable ”, he says.
Rui Moreira ‘ironic’
At the same hearing, Pedro Nuno Santos stated that the four routes resumed at the Porto airport – Amsterdam, Milan, Zurich and Ponta Delgada – Amsterdam, Milan, Zurich and Ponta Delgada – represent “at this moment a loss” for TAP.
Rui Moreira reacted to these statements with irony and a … ‘challenge’. “If it is the four routes of Porto that cause losses, stop them,” said the mayor of Porto. In a text on Facebook, Rui Moreira suggested that TAP join Carris or Soflusa, two public transport companies that operate exclusively in Lisbon. «Incorporate TAP in Carris or in the very profitable Soflusa. We don’t care, we will find a solution. It’s great for Lisbon: it stays with TAP, which, without prejudice to Porto, is no longer a ‘waste’. For the rest of the country, for the province in which we happily include ourselves, it is wonderful, because TAP no longer costs us money, ”the mayor wrote.
Following this reaction, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Housing took a step back, issuing a statement indicating that TAP “is currently losing money on practically all routes.”
