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The Union of Civil Aviation Pilots (SPAC) warned this Sunday that the rescue guidelines, which structured the aid granted to TAP, are inadequate and will lead to the extinction of the aircraft carrier.
“TAP’s difficulties are not the result of its own situation. Result of the drastic change in the market derived from the pandemic [de covid-19], like all other companies in the sector ”, reads a memorandum from SPAC, sent to the parliamentary groups, to which Lusa had access.
In June, the European Commission approved emergency aid to TAP, in accordance with salvage and restructuring (R&R) guidelines, based on the company’s classification as a company in difficulty.
In the document, SPAC recalled that, when the pandemic was declared, TAP worked normally, not allowing us to assume that the company, “without State intervention”, would be condemned “to disappear in the short or medium term”, according to the guidelines. R&R, which exist to prevent an uncompetitive company from being helped by the State, damaging the market.
These guidelines, as explained by the union structure, only allow the State to grant aid if companies take measures to resolve “the causes of their needs.”
Thus, taking into account that the condition of the carrier is derived from the market situation, the restructuring plan is not being drawn up “due to structural causes of the company that would have put it in difficulties and would have justified the aid,” the union considered. emphasizing that the “market scenario” was only chosen because there was no more time to deliver the plan.
For the union structure, the application of the guidelines will lead to the “extinction” of the company, making it less competitive, due to the reduction in scale and the erroneous characterization of its business model, leaving it still without financing, since the distribution of charges, which imposes losses on shareholders and creditors, as well as restrictions on state injections, “will make it almost impossible to find sources of financing.”
In the memorandum delivered to the parliamentary groups, the union argued that the solution now involves designing and granting aid to TAP to “repair the damage caused by extraordinary events”, taking into account that the covid-19 pandemic “is without doubt an extraordinary fact ”. .
SPAC also assured that this “may be a restructuring plan with reasonable market assumptions, minimally stabilized” and structured by the government, obeying “national interests and market requirements.”
According to the structure, the plan should also be able to identify long-term sources of financing, without “unrealistic” equilibrium conditions, which do not apply to other companies.
“In order not to violate the obligations assumed by the Portuguese State, a support measure must be designed […] provide the company with financial means to reimburse aid already granted. This reimbursement would definitively end the application of the R&R guidelines and would allow an additional period to have a more stable idea of the future evolution of the markets and adjust the plan to those needs ”, he concluded.
TAP’s restructuring plan must be presented to the European Commission before December 10, being a requirement of the European Commission for the granting of a state loan of up to 1,200 million euros, to face the difficulties of the company derived from the impact. avid-19 pandemic in the aviation sector.
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