The Portuguese government will approve next week the decree to privatize TAP Air Portugal, the airline renationalized in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa announced on Tuesday.
The Portuguese airline group, whose difficulties had increased with the Covid-19 pandemic, was completely urgently renationalized in 2020, in exchange for the application of a rescue plan worth 3.2 billion dinars euros.
The terms of the operation should be known during the council of ministers on September 28. The privatization of the Portuguese company has already aroused the interest of several airline groups, including Air France-KLM, IAG (parent of British Airways and Iberia in particular) and Lufthansa.
Profit of 80.3 million euros, loss of 80.4 million
TAP returned to profit in 2022, two years ahead of the target set in its restructuring plan imposed by Brussels, by generating a net profit for the first time since 2017, of more than 65 million euros. In the second quarter of this year, the company recorded a profit of 80.3 million euros, compared to a loss of 80.4 million in the same period last year.
The socialist government on Tuesday escaped a motion of censure presented to Parliament for voting by the far-right Chega party, whose leader André Ventura called Costa “the worst Prime Minister in the history” of the country.
It was rejected in particular thanks to the votes of the socialist majority and the voices of the extreme left, while the main opposition party, the Social Democratic Party (PSD, centre-right), abstained. This is the third time that Costa’s government has faced a vote of no confidence since the Socialists won an absolute majority in January 2022.
Source: BFM TV
