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The presentation of TAP’s restructuring plan to the unions of employees working for the company caused shock and outrage: the plan designed with the contribution of the consulting firm Boston Consulting Group and Deutsche Bank is due to be presented in Brussels before December 10 and will be even more than expected: including two thousand layoffs – of 500 pilots (of the current 1,468), 750 effective cabin crew members and another 750 ground crew employees (450 from TAP Mantenimiento e Ingeniería, which operates in Brazil, and 300 headquarters). The package of measures also includes a 25% transversal cut in the salary of those who stay and the reduction of the company’s fleet. TAP should have 88 aircraft, compared to 101 at the end of the third quarter (seven less than in June).
Five thousand lose their jobs
In addition to the two thousand announced layoffs, there are almost three thousand exits that have been added in the last months of crisis. It should be remembered that Grupo TAP will lose more than 1600 workers with fixed-term contracts by the end of the year, which means that – with the approximately 200 contracts ending in the first quarter of 2021 and the almost 1,000 layoffs expected by the company in driving Groundforce (in which TAP has a minority stake): The TAP universe will lose more than 4,800 workers (direct and indirect) by March of next year.
The announcement generated a first expression of discontent last Wednesday, when hundreds of workers gathered at the door of the Assembly of the Republic to demand dialogue and transparency in the context of the process. “We want transparency” was one of the slogans of the initiative, promoted by the spontaneous movement ‘The TAP numbers have a face’, without ties to the unions.
However, the Civil Aviation Pilots Union (SPAC) took the first step to stop the restructuring plan, filing a precautionary measure to demand information on the plan that provides for the dismissal of 500 pilots. The union structure asserts that the company only provided “incomplete, insufficient and misleading information” to the workers and demands to participate “actively” in the restructuring of the company.
The Bloco de Esquerda requested, in turn, an urgent audience with the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, Pedro Nuno Santos, on the plan.
Loss of 700.6 million
This week the TAP results for the third quarter were also presented. The company, as expected, accumulated losses in the first nine months of the year to 700.6 million euros, compared to a loss of 110.8 million euros in the same period of 2019.
The report confirms that TAP received 582.4 million euros from the Portuguese State until the end of September, by virtue of the aid agreement for the company initiated in June. This figure is included in the financial debt heading, which amounted to 1,699.4 million euros at the end of September, which represents an increase compared to the 932.1 million euros registered at the end of last year. It should be remembered that this figure is part of the loan from the Portuguese State in favor of the TAP Group, which should reach 1,200 million euros by the end of the year. The Government also included in the State Budgets for 2021 an amount of 500 million euros in guarantees for TAP, so that the company can finance itself in the market, but that may be higher (possibly double) due to the slow recovery of the aviation sector .
